Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to meet US President Barack Obama at the White House next Tuesday. An official announcement is due this afternoon from Washington. Sources there said that the meeting was nearly a 100% certainty.
News of the planned meeting was leaked ahead of this evening's meeting between Netanyahu and Obama's Chief of Staff Ram Emanuel, who is on a private visit to Israel to mark his son's Bar Mitzvah. Sources in Washington said that the two men will discuss the agenda for the meeting with Obama.
Netanyahu is due to fly to Paris tomorrow to attend the ceremony marking Israel's accession to the OECD, after which he will go to Ottawa. The visits to France and Canada were planned some time ago, and the trip to Washington was added at the last moment.
The upcoming meeting at the White House is another link in the effort by the US to rehabilitate relations with Israel, which deteriorated after Netanyahu's last meeting with Obama in March. Last week, during a meeting with US Jewish Members of Congress, Obama said that he had spent more time with Netanyahu than with the leader of any other country. The upcoming meeting will be the fourth between the two men.
Sources believe that, this time, the US administration will take care to give prominence to the meeting, and a joint press conference by Obama and Netanyahu cannot be ruled out.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 26, 2010
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