Iran ostensibly tops the agenda at Monday’s summit meeting at the White House between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, the Prime Minister’s national security advisor Uzi Arad said Sunday night.
However, Newsweek magazine added that the president is “laying a trap” for Prime Minister Netanyahu and will use the Iranian nuclear threat as a means to press for the acceptance of a Palestinian Authority state. Rahm Emanuel, the president’s Chief of Staff -- whose father served in the Jewish underground during the British mandate -- has said that the U.S. will be more cooperative with Israel in acting against Iran if the Jewish State returns the favors towards establishing a new Palestinian Authority state.
Emanuel was an advisor to former President Bill Clinton and backed the Oslo Accords.
The meeting will be longer than previously planned and will last approximately three and a half hours, according to the schedule released by the president’s office. It will begin at 5:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m. EDT) with a private conference for about an hour, followed by the inclusion of half a dozen officials from Israel and a similar number from the U.S. A limited number of media representatives will be allowed to enter the meeting room two hours into the talks, and the leaders will answer questions.
Following another work session, the delegates will eat lunch in the ornate White House dining room.
The president told Newsweek magazine, "I understand very clearly that Israel considers Iran an existential threat, and given some of the statements that have been made by President Ahmadinejad, you can understand why.” Israel's "calculation of costs and benefits are going to be more acute. They're right there in range and I don't think it's my place to determine for the Israelis what their security needs are."
The PA may be complicating its objective by new discussions with the Hamas terrorist organization for a joint military force. Recognizing Hamas, which is outlawed by the U.S and is backed by Iran and Syria, would effectively allow the countries to enter diplomatic talks through the back door.
Israeli media have been playing up a possible clash between the president and the minister, but Voice of America’s Foreign Affairs Editor Jim Hoge said, “I think that if this was the first Netanyahu government, way back, that there might have been a real clash and there might have been a follow-up of charges, if not directly from either of them, from parties to them. But the Netanyahu this time around I think is more disciplined, probably his pragmatic streak is closer to the surface."
Elliot Abrams, who was deputy national security adviser in the Bush administration, added that the impression each leader makes on the other will be clear after details of the discussions are leaked to the media.