Then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at a July 4 event in Jerusalem, hailing the “unbreakable” ties between the U.S. and Israel, an echo of then-President Barack Obama’s assessment of the relationship in a speech he gave in Cairo earlier that year. The moment came before the relationship between the two leaders would sour over Obama’s two terms in office.
“We have a close relationship with the United States, which President Obama defined in his speech in Cairo as unbreakable, and it is indeed unbreakable,” Netanyahu said.
But the seeds of disunity were planted. Netanyahu attended the event along with several members of his cabinet despite a push by Danny Danon, then a rival in his own Likud party, to convince Likud members to skip the event. “There is a certain mood and style in Washington that makes it hard to go and celebrate,” Danon told The Washington Post at the time, noting that the two leaders already had an “air of bitterness” between them.