Axelrod talks to the RAC (and JTA)

A top adviser to President Obama said a meeting between the president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “will happen in the very near future.”

“Of course he wants to meet with him,” David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, told JTA on Monday after speaking at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism’s biannual Consultation on Consicence. “That’s in the works,” he said, adding that the two men “had a good conversation” when they spoke on the phone earlier this month after Netanyahu became prime minister.

There had been anonymously sourced reports in the Israeli press in recent days alleging that Obama was avoiding Netanyahu.

In his remarks to the RAC, Axelrod ran down the administration’s accomplishments in its first 100 days and looked toward its agenda for the future. He streesed that “we believe strongly in the two-state solution” because “we believe that’s in our interest and Israel’s interest.”

“We want to see momentum moving forward, not backward,” he told the crowd.

Asked afterward whether he was optimistic about reaching that goal, Axlerod said, “We’re always optimists. That’s what we’re going to work for. I’m sure that when he and the prime minister meet they’ll have a full discussion about that.”

Other highlights from the half-hour Axelrod appearance:

• He said he came to the RAC "as an ally and friend," saying that "to the extent that you can rally suppoprt for us that would be greatly appreciated," but also "to express yourselves when you feel that we’re losing our way but to understand that we’re generally headed in the right direction."
• He said the positive reaction to Obama by the leaders of Cuba and Venezuela this weekend demonstrated that "anti-Americanism is not cool anymore" because the president has "not only engaged leaders but the people of the world.