US president says Middle East peace deal is unrealistic in final months in office, officials admit ahead of Netanyahu visit

Barack Obama has made a “realistic assessment” that a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians is not possible during his final months in office, US officials have said.

The officials spoke to reporters before the visit of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to the White House on Monday. It will be the first time the American president and Netanyahu have met since the US and its international partners reached a nuclear accord with Iran.

Netanyahu was a chief critic of the deal and lobbied Republicans in Congress to oppose its implementation.

While the nuclear accord is expected to be a major focus of the leaders’ talks, they will also discuss the fresh wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence that began two months ago at a Jerusalem holy site and spread across Israel and into the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Officials said Obama and Netanyahu would discuss steps to prevent further confrontation between the parties in the absence of a peace agreement. They said that while Obama remains committed to a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians, he does not believe it is possible before he leaves office in January 2017, barring a major shift.

Obama and Netanyahu have long had a tense relationship, which was further strained by the US president’s pursuit of the deal with Iran.

The visit also comes amid a row over the Israeli prime minister’s new spokesman, Ron Baratz, who suggested in old Facebook posts that have emerged since his appointment on Wednesday that Obama is anti-Semitic and John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, cannot be taken seriously.

The State Department called the comments “troubling and offensive” and claimed the Netanyahu had promised to “review” the appointment. A statement from Netanyahu said Baratz had “asked to meet me to clarify the matter following my return to Israel.”

In a new Facebook post, Baratz apologised for the “hurtful remarks” he had posted and said he was sorry he had not informed Netanyahu in advance about them. “These postings were written hastily and sometimes humorously, in a manner appropriate for a private person writing on the internet,” he wrote.

Baratz is the latest in a series of controversial Netanyahu appointees. His ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, is a former Republican operative in the US and spearheaded Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in March arguing against the nuclear deal with Iran.



Israel’s new ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, is a strong supporter of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and an equally fervent opponent of the establishment of a Palestinian state, putting him at odds with the international community.