Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “have trust in each other,” US Ambassador Dan
Shapiro said on Wednesday, taking issue with the characterization that the two
men “don’t like each other very much.”
Shapiro, speaking at the Institute
of National Security Studies annual conference in Tel Aviv, said that the
“strong ties that flow all the way down the ranks of our governments, militaries
and intelligence services” are “designed and directed by the two leaders at the
top who have trust in each other.”
Shapiro’s comments came after Robert
Blackwill, a former deputy national security adviser under George W. Bush, said
at the conference that “it is common knowledge that the Israeli prime minister
and the American president don’t like each other very much. And that worries
me.”
Shapiro said he “respectfully disagreed” with Blackwill’s
assessment.
Blackwill, numerating what he said were clouds on the horizon
of US-Israeli relations, said he was “very worried” about the personal
relationship between Obama and Netanyahu.
“I worked in the White House
three different times on the national security council,” Blackwill said. “Good
relations can soften disagreements, bad relations can exacerbate
disagreements.
It matters. What we Americans tend to forget is that the
fellow who goes to work every morning in the Oval Office is called a homo
sapien, and he has glands like all the rest of us – and he gets affected by his
glands.”