White House declines to say whether Israel is an 'important' ally

The White House Friday sidestepped a question on whether Israel and Saudi Arabia are "important allies" of the United States.

"Can you please just give a broad sense of what the administration is trying to achieve in the Middle East? For example, does the administration still consider the Saudis and the Israelis important allies?" She responded: "Well, you know, again, I think, we, there are ongoing processes and internal interagency processes, one that we, I think confirmed an interagency meeting just last week to discuss a range of issues in the Middle East where we've only been here three and a half weeks.