W.H.: Despite Snubs, the U.S.-Israel Relationship ‘Has Never Been Stronger’

‘Both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama have succeeded in ensuring that strong relationship continues serving the populations of both our countries’

JANSING: "I just want to ask you about the visit by Benjamin Netanyahu and, in fact, the president is not going to be meeting with him. It certainly looks like he's likely to win reelection. Even before this happened, we're sort of anticipating -- how problematic is this for the president's shall we say less than cozy relationship with Mr. Netanyahu and has this been damaging overall to U.S.-Israeli relations."

EARNEST: "Let me just state at the beginning that I'm not gonna speculate about the outcome of the election because again, I'd not want -- even my uniformed speculation about Israeli politics could be construed as interfering in that election in any way. But what I can talk about is the relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu and I think what is clear from the public statements of both men is that the counter terrorism and security relationship between our two countries has never been stronger. In fact, it's the prime minister himself who said that the level of security cooperation between United States and Israel is unprecedented. And that reflects a commitment from people on both sides of this relationship working together to pursue the national security interests of both their countries. It's in the interest of the United States of America, for the United States, to have a strong security relationship and security partnership with Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East. It's also important for the people of Israel that they have a strong and functioning security relationship with the United States. Just last year, when innocent Israeli citizens were in the line of fire from extremists in Gaza who were firing rockets across the border, the United States acted to rump up our assistance to the Israelis and provide additional funding for the Iron Dome program so that that program can be resupplied and Iron Dome program is essentially the program that's used to shoot down rockets that are destined for Israeli population centers. So, there is an important relationship between our two countries and both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama have succeeded in ensuring that that string relationship continues to serve very well the both of our countries."

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