(Al Jazeera Media Network) The U.S. has been Israel’s top financial and diplomatic backer with military aid in the billions of dollars and frequent vetoes at the UN Security Council to shield the Israeli government from international accountability for its actions in the Palestinian territories.
That support will persist even as Netanyahu explicitly rebuffs U.S. calls for establishing a Palestinian state, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller has suggested.
“Our support for Israel remains ironclad. But that doesn’t mean that there are no differences between our two countries,” Miller told reporters.
He added that the issue is “not a question of the United States pressuring” Israel to do anything, but it’s about Israel’s own choices and whether it will seize the opportunity for “greater integration” in the region and ending the conflict.