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Netanyahu, Facing Trump or Clinton, Urged to Take Obama Aid

  • They worry Trump is unpredictable and Clinton unreliable
  • This is despite all the tensions with Obama over eight years
U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Nov. 9, 2015.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Nov. 9, 2015.

Photographer: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his aides are watching the U.S. election with confusion and concern, unsure of Donald Trump and uneasy over Hillary Clinton. Some advisers are therefore urging him to seal a military aid package with someone he has long mistrusted -- President Barack Obama.

“It should be tied up now,” says Zalman Shoval, Netanyahu’s former ambassador to Washington, leader of a group of retired diplomats who advise the government on the U.S.-Israel relationship. “It is risky for Israel to let the existing agreement run out without knowing the drift of the future administration.”