Israel gets pledge of US support

He told visiting prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu they agreed that diplomacy was the best way to resolve the crisis over potential Iranian nuclear weapons.

“Both the prime minister and I prefer to solve this diplomatically,” Mr Obama said as he Mr Netanyahu began several hours of White House consultations. The US would consider all options in confronting what it sees as the unacceptable outcome of an Iranian bomb, Mr Obama said.

Mr Netanyahu added that Israel was a sovereign nation with the right to defend itself, a pointed reference to the main question hanging over the meeting: Whether to try to stop an Iranian bomb with a military attack.

Israel must remain “the master of its fate,” he said.

Mr Obama will try to persuade him to slow pressure among many in his hawkish government to attack Iran’s nuclear development sites.