Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu downplays rift with US President Barack Obama as ’exaggerated’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to play down a row with President Barack Obama, saying the rift between the leaders had been exaggerated.

"The disagreement has been blown way out of proportion," Netanyahu was quoted as saying by his spokesman, a day after the Israeli PM slammed Obama's vision for Middle East peace as "based on illusions." "It is true we have some differences of opinions, but they are differences among friends," Netanyahu said.

In a dramatic Oval Office appearance, after 90 minutes of talks on Friday, Netanyahu emphatically rejected a call from Obama on Israel to accept a return to territorial lines in place before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, with mutual land swaps with Palestinians to frame a secure peace. "While Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines - because these lines are indefensible," Netanyahu claimed.

Netanyahu's latest comments did not contain any change to that position.

Yet, Netanyahu expressed belief that Obama had "shown his commitment to Israel's security, both in word and indeed," the spokesman added. "And we are working with the administration to achieve common goals."

The spokesman did not define those shared goals, but Israeli officials have cited Obama's opposition to a Palestinian bid to win UN recognition of a state in the September in the absence of peace talks, and to Iran's nuclear program.

Netanyahu is in Washington for a six-day trip that will also see him give a speech to the powerful Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) before a joint address to Congress next week, to which he was invited by Republican leaders who support his position.