Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s low-profile White House visit, widely portrayed as frosty, in fact broke the ice in his relations with President Barack Obama, a senior Israeli official said on Wednesday.
And since the meeting on Monday, Washington has been keeping the pressure on Palestinians to resume peace talks without an Israeli settlement freeze first.
Netanyahu, who has withstood U.S. pressure to halt settlement construction, was ushered into the Oval Office after nightfall for a session at which, contrary to normal practice with a visiting Israeli leader, reporters were not allowed in.
Back home in Israel, newspapers seized on the low-profile White House visit as a snub, a sign of strained relations between Obama and Netanyahu, who had rejected his calls for a halt to settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.
