WarSclerotic

White House reaffirms Obama support for Kerry peace push, Jerusalem Post, February 10, 2014

Reports in Israeli media to the contrary are “totally false.”

US President Barack Obama makes a State of the Union address, January 28, 2014. Photo: REUTERS

WASHINGTON — The White House pushed back on Sunday against reports in the Israeli press that US President Barack Obama does not support US Secretary of State John Kerry’s aggressive effort to forge peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Any notion that Secretary Kerry failed to obtain the President’s backing for his efforts is totally false,” White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said on Sunday.

“President Obama remains fully invested in Secretary Kerry’s tireless work on behalf of peace, and those efforts are not focused on confronting the parties— they are aimed at bridging differences and developing a framework for negotiation on the core issues.”

Over the weekend, Channel 10 and the Times of Israel reported that Kerry requested the president’s support to “impose terms for peace” on the two parties, which the president would not provide.

Channel 10 claimed that, without Obama’s support, talks had “pretty much collapsed.”

Sourcing for the story was not revealed by Channel 10 and were identified as “unnamed sources close to the negotiations. The report could not be independently corroborated by The Jerusalem Post.

By MICHAEL WILNER

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