Obama reelection would be bad for Jerusalem, Rivlin says

A week before Americans head to the polls, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday said that US President Barack Obama’s reelection would bode ill for the State of Israel.

Speaking during a tour of West Bank outposts and settlements, Rivlin remarked that the next Israeli government will “coordinate with the American government on a host of matters,” but warned that a second Obama term would pose problems for Jerusalem.

“We are quite familiar with Obama’s policy,” Rivlin said, according to Maariv, speaking about settlement construction and the upcoming US elections. “I believe that if the current [American] government is reelected, our government will have a hard time in terms of diplomacy and security with everything relating to strengthening settlements.”

Rivlin also commented on the Levy report, published in July, which recommended legalizing most of the unauthorized Jewish outposts in the West Bank. In his opinion, the current government cannot approve the measure to legalize the outposts.

“We are in a transition period in which the government cannot advance appropriate solutions, but the matter rests with the next government,” he said.

Earlier this week, Rivlin caused a stir in a Knesset memorial to assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by saying that the Oslo peace accords had failed to yield a long-term diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.