Netanyahu: I’ve enjoyed all my meetings with Obama

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday he enjoyed his meetings with US President Barack Obama over the past seven years, claiming the two agreed more than disagreed — two days after the leaders had what is likely to be their last meeting during Obama’s presidency.

“Contrary to what people think, I always enjoyed each of the — I’m told — 17 meetings,” Netanyahu told Channel 2 news.

“In some of them we disagreed. On much we agreed. And I especially enjoyed this meeting because it came after we signed” the recent US military aid deal, he said, calling the accord “an important moment for the state of Israel and for US-Israel relations.”

Netanyahu said the two had not discussed the possibility that the US may push an initiative to advance the peace process during the president’s last months in office — such as supporting a UN resolution unfavorable to Jerusalem — without coordinating with Israel.

“Did we speak about it? The answer is no. Do I hope that he doesn’t do it? The answer is yes,” he said. He expressed his faith in the American leader, noting that “the only time Obama vetoed a UN resolution was an anti-Israeli decision in 2011.

“I can only hope that this consistent policy by Obama will hold true to the end of his term,” Netanyahu stated.

Senior Obama administration officials have said that at the meeting the president raised “profound US concerns” that settlement-building was eroding prospects for peace. Netanyahu challenged that notion, said one official, adding that the two leaders had not “papered over” their differences.

The premier told Channel 2 that the Palestinian leadership was “ensnared in an internal trap they’ve pushed themselves into,” reiterating his position that it is Palestinian refusal to acknowledge the Jewish state that is the main obstacle to peace.

“They’ve created so much propaganda against the State of Israel that it’s difficult for them to make the [necessary] change,” he said.

Also during the interview, Netanyahu said police probes into his affairs are based on a “mess of falsehoods” and will “come to nothing.

“There are many attempts to heap a mess of falsehoods upon [police]. And I say again what I have said many times before, and you’ll see it will be so: It will come to nothing, because there is nothing.”

He defended his supportive phone call earlier this year to the father of an Israeli soldier currently on trial for the killing of an incapacitated Palestinian attacker in Hebron.

Netanyahu, whose conversation with Charlie Azaria in late March was criticized by some as inappropriate — as judges have yet to rule in the case of Azaria’s son Elor — told Channel 2 News he had no regrets on the matter.

“You know what I told him? Word for word: Place your trust in the IDF, in the chief of staff, in our commanders and soldiers and our justice system.”