Jeffrey Goldberg, Columnist

Netanyahu Says Obama Got Syria Right

In an exclusive interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Benjamin Netanyahu offers his most extensive comments to date on the reasons he thinks the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has failed.
"We want a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state." Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
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Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has some uncharacteristically positive words for one of U.S. President Barack Obama's most controversial foreign policy initiatives: the deal struck last year to remove chemical weapons from Syria.

I met Netanyahu last Friday afternoon in his bunkerlike office in Jerusalem. During the course of our discussion, I asked him about the famous "red line" crisis -- Obama's last-minute decision to abort a missile strike and instead negotiate the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile -- that colors so much of foreign-policy commentary today.