President Obama hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House Tuesday for the first time since Israel’s deadly assault on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May. Obama and Netanyahu emphasized the “unbreakable” bond between Israel and the United States and downplayed recent US-Israeli tensions over Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Despite ongoing Israeli settlement expansion, roadblocks, closures and the attack on the flotilla, Obama said he thinks Israel “has shown restraint.”

President Obama: “I think the Israeli government, working through layers of various governmental entities and jurisdictions, have shown restraint over the last several months that I think has been conducive to the prospects of us getting into direct talks. And my hope is, is that once direct talks have begun, well before the moratorium has expired, that that will create a climate in which everybody feels a greater investment in success, not every action by one party or the other is taken as a reason for not engaging in talks, so there ends up being more room created by more trust.”

Netanyahu went on to downplay talk of simmering US-Israeli tensions, saying that ties between the two governments remain strong.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Here I’ll have to paraphrase Mark Twain, that the reports about the demise of the special US-Israel relations — relationship aren’t just premature, they’re just flat wrong. There is a depth and richness of this relationship that is expressed every day. Our teams talk. We don’t make it public. The only thing that’s public is that you can have differences on occasion in the best of families, in the closest of families, that comes out public.”

Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama comes as the Israeli military prosecutor has launched disciplinary and legal action in four separate cases from Israel’s twenty-two-day assault on Gaza last year.