Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Marco Rubio and Benjamin Netanyahu Toast Israel Ties — With Water Bottles

Senator Marco Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toasted their nations’ close ties on Wednesday with a click of plastic water bottles reminiscent of the Republican’s sip seen ‘round the world in Washington last week.

Photographers captured the cross-table gesture in Netanyahu’s office moments after Rubio remarked how Israel resides “in a challenging neighbourhood,” and he was “pleased” President Barack Obama would be visiting Israel next month.

“Certainly our commitment to that partnership is bipartisan and it should remain that way,” Rubio said, adding how he felt Israeli-US ties were “one of the most important ones we have”.

Rubio famously interrupted his delivery of the official Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union address on Feb. 12 to take a swig of water from a plastic bottle, video of which went viral across the Internet.

Netanyahu had his own brush with embarrassment this past week with Israeli newspaper reports that his family had spent several thousand dollars in the past year on gourmet ice cream.

Rubio, 41, from Florida was an active campaigner for Mitt Romney’s failed bid to unseat Obama in November. Netanyahu also made little secret of having backed Romney, having had strained ties with Obama over Middle East policy differences.

Netanyahu said, though, in response to Rubio’s comments on Obama’s impending visit that “we look forward to receiving him”.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version