Hillary Rodham Clinton said the relationship between the United States and Israel should return to a “constructive footing,” according to Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
The former secretary of state, who is expected to soon announce her candidacy in the 2016 presidential election, spoke by telephone with Hoenlein on March 29.
“Secretary Clinton thinks we need to all work together to return the special U.S.-Israel relationship to constructive footing, to get back to basic shared concerns and interests, including a two-state solution pursued through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians,” Hoenlein said in a statement issued after the chat.
“We must ensure that Israel never becomes a partisan issue,” he added, citing the call with Clinton.
A spokesman for Clinton confirmed that she had spoken to Hoenlein, but would not confirm if he had quoted her accurately, the New York Times reported.
The comments by Clinton were her first on the U.S.-Israel relationship to be made public since Israeli national elections on March 17. The relationship between Israel and the United States hit a nadir in the wake of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pre-election rhetoric that there would be no two-state solution during his tenure and his continuing disagreements with the Obama administration over a potential deal with Iran on its nuclear program. — jta