WarSclerotic

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed Israel’s strong ties with the United States on Thursday after tensions in the run-up to his election victory, saying Israel has “no greater ally.”

“There are so many areas where we must work together with the United States,” Netanyahu said in an interview with NBC. “America has no greater ally than Israel and Israel has no greater ally than the United States.”

Netanyahu’s resounding victory in Tuesday’s election did not do much to ease the tensions between the Israeli prime minister and the White House. It was only on Thursday, after a significant delay, that U.S. President Barack Obama called Netanyahu to congratulate him on his re-election. Hours after the election, Netanyahu did receive a congratulatory phone call, but from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, not Obama — a departure from protocol that many say speaks to a growing rift between the two leaders.

According to the White House, in their telephone conversation, Obama told Netanyahu the U.S. values its close security cooperation and long-standing partnership with Israel. A brief statement summarizing the conversation says the two leaders agreed to keep consulting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other issues.

The White House said the leaders discussed U.S. nuclear negotiations with Iran. Netanyahu has been a vocal critic of Obama’s diplomatic outreach to Iran.

Obama also said Washington would “re-assess” its options on U.S.-Israel relations and Middle East diplomacy, in light of Netanyahu’s recent remark suggesting that no Palestinian state would be established during his term. In an interview Thursday, Netanyahu explained that it was not a shift in his policy but rather Palestinian inflexibility that would prevent the peace process from moving forward.

The White House, unmoved by Netanyahu’s efforts to backtrack, delivered a fresh rebuke against him on Thursday and signaled that Washington may reconsider its decades-long policy of shielding close ally Israel from international pressure at the United Nations.

“I haven’t changed my policy. I never retracted my speech in Bar-Ilan University six years ago calling for a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state,” Netanyahu told MSNBC in his first U.S. television interview since winning the bitterly contested Israeli ballot.

“What has changed is the reality,” Netanyahu said, citing the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and the Hamas militant group’s continued control of the Gaza Strip.

“I don’t want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution,” Netanyahu told MSNBC. “But for that, circumstances have to change. I was talking about what is achievable and what is not achievable. To make it achievable, then you have to have real negotiations with people who are committed to peace.”

The harsh U.S. response signaled that relations with Israel, already at their lowest point since Obama took office, could deteriorate further as an end-of-March deadline looms in U.S.-led nuclear diplomacy with Iran, which Netanyahu vehemently opposes.

Among the most serious risks for Israel would be a shift in Washington’s posture at the United Nations. The United States has long stood in the way of Palestinian efforts to get a U.N. resolution recognizing its statehood, including threatening to use its veto, and has protected Israel from efforts to isolate it internationally.

“Steps that the United States has taken at the United Nations had been predicated on this idea that the two-state solution is the best outcome,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “Now our ally in these talks has said that they are no longer committed to that solution.”

In the interview, Netanyahu was also asked about his call to voters on election day in which he warned that his government was “in danger” because “Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls.”

When asked to respond to allegations that he is racist, Netanyahu said simply, “I am not.”

Speaking to NPR, Netanyahu added: “I wasn’t trying to block anyone from voting. I was trying to mobilize my own voters.”

“The Arabs in Israel are the only Arabs that have consistently had the right to participate in elections. That is sacrosanct,” he said, adding that he was proud to be “prime minister to all of Israel’s citizens, Arabs and Jews alike.”