Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election victory could derail two of President Obama’s top foreign policy goals — a peace agreement with the Palestinians and a nuclear deal with Iran, experts said Wednesday.
“Netanyahu has just been re-elected by a significant margin and is more than likely to form a government that will keep him stable and in power for three to four more years,” Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told NBC News.
“So if they can’t mend the fences? It’s a lame-duck administration in the US. Netanyahu will just try to buy time until it passes.”
Ignoring Obama would also play well at home, and the breach between the pair may be too broad to repair, others said.
“While the United States is loved and beloved in Israel, President Obama is not,” Robert Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Washington Post.
“They have six years of accumulated history. That’s going to put limits on how far they can go together. I think we’re just going to see a continued friction and tension, but perhaps at a reduced volume.”
In Washington, the administration blasted Netanyahu’s comments leading up to Tuesday’s election, including his disavowal of his earlier support for a Palestinian state.
Obama and previous US administrations have long insisted that is the only way to a lasting peace in the Middle East.
“It has been the longstanding policy of the United States that a two-state solution is the best way to address this conflict,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
Netanyahu’s staunch opposition to a nuclear deal with Iran could also encourage Republicans to scuttle any agreement.
“The Republicans have said they will do what they can to block a deal, and the prime minister has already made clear that he will work with the Republicans against the president,” Martin Indyk, vice president of the Brookings Institution and former US ambassador to Israel, told the Washington Post. “That’s where a clash could come, and it’s coming very quickly.”
While world leaders called Netanyahu on Wednesday to offer congratulations on his stunning victory, Obama did not.
Earnest said the delay was standard protocol and the president would make the call in a few days, once Israel’s president calls on Netanyahu to form the new government.
But Secretary of State John Kerry made a brief call on his own to offer congratulations.
Additional reporting by Geoff Earle