Analysis: Benjamin Netanyahu waiting for Obama’s successor in a gamble on Israel’s security
If more proof was needed about the nature of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s behavior toward the administration of US President Barack Obama, it was given during Sunday’s cabinet meeting. Netanyahu said that if Israel does not get what it wants in negotiations with the Obama administration on the new US defense aid package, then it will postpone signing the agreement until a new president enters the White House in January 2017, in an attempt to achieve better conditions.
Despite Netanyahu’s attempts to thwart the nuclear agreement between Iran and the six world powers, an unprecedented effort in the annals of international diplomacy that included intervention in internal US affairs, the Obama administration agreed to swallow the insult and discuss a defense aid compensation package for Israel. Negotiations between the two sides were launched during which Israel requested to raise annual military aid from $3 billion (Israel actually received an additional $400 million annually in recent years for development of anti-missile systems) to $5 billion.