Only hours after announcing the landmark deal with Iran over its nuclear development program, reports surfaced that President Obama contacted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to offer an olive branch.
According to the New York Times, Obama was prepared to discuss with Netanyahu an enhanced military aid package to bolster its defense systems, a discussion which Netanyahu rejected.
Insiders say the Prime Minister will wait for specific actions from Congress before moving forward on his own response in the wake of what he has repeatedly decried as a monumental international blunder.
Israel currently receives as much as $3 billion in annual military aid from the U.S., but an increase in that aid risks being seen as hypocritical at best in light of Israel’s argument that the nuclear deal ignores Iran’s repeated public threats of annihilation.
In other words, Obama is quite aware that the deal comes across as selling out Israeli interests and he is trying to smooth things over by giving things away.
