Bloomberg.com
By Gwen Ackerman
March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met President Barack Obama late yesterday after insisting on Israel’s right to pursue housing projects in Jerusalem opposed by the U.S. as detrimental to peace efforts.
“This was never raised as a point of contention between us and the U.S.” in 42 years of building in Jewish neighborhoods of the Israeli capital, Netanyahu told U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a few hours before meeting Obama, according to his spokesman, Nir Hefez.
Netanyahu cautioned that talks the U.S. is attempting to arrange between Israel and the Palestinian Authority might be delayed as a result. “The Palestinians are now raising a new demand,” he said. “If this demand is adopted we are liable to lose another year.”
Obama and Netanyahu met at the White House in an attempt to smooth over a dispute about Israel’s approval of plans to build new apartments in east Jerusalem. The action was announced during a March 9 visit by Vice President Joe Biden, prompting immediate and public U.S. criticism.
The meeting was held “in a good atmosphere” and advisers for Obama and Netanyahu will meet today to discuss the ideas they raised, the prime minister’s office said in a text message to reporters.
The Israeli leader departed the White House about 9 p.m. Washington time yesterday after a visit of about 3 1/2 hours, without issuing any statement about the discussion. U.S. presidents usually appear with visiting foreign leaders to summarize their talks and take questions from reporters.
Obama’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said before the meeting that the goal of the encounter was to foster “an atmosphere of trust.” (Do not trust a liar, please, Netanyahu!!)
‘Into A Corner’
“Part of the problem is that they both have backed themselves into a corner,” said Steven Spiegel, director of the UCLA Center for Middle East Development in Los Angeles. “Of all the issues, Jerusalem is the most emotional.” (Of course it is, since Biden never should have opened his mouth while he was a guest of Israel! He was rude, he was late to dinner, and insulted his "host"! Biden needs to read "How to influence people" before you let him out of his room to speak to diplomats and leaders of a State. Clinton needs to read the same book and remember that she is not Israeli, and has no idea what Israeli's must face daily. If she did, she would not be backing terrorists.)
Palestinians have linked participation in U.S.-mediated indirect peace talks to the cancellation of the Jerusalem construction plans. Haaretz newspaper reported today that the Jerusalem municipality approved plans for 20 apartments for Jewish Israelis in an east Jerusalem building.
Israel has never fulfilled its commitment under a 2003 U.S. backed peace “road map” to freeze all settlement activity. Netanyahu said in Washington on March 22 that Israel doesn’t consider Jerusalem to be a settlement.
Building Today
“The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today,” Netanyahu said in a speech to the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital.”
Netanyahu told Pelosi that the construction under question would be in an already inhabited Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem.
“The Palestinians don’t really think Israel will ever dismantle Pisgat Zeev or French Hill. We can’t get caught up in this unreasonable, illogical demand,” he said, mentioning two established neighborhoods in Jerusalem built on land Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war and then annexed in a move never internationally recognized.
Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of their prospective state. “Netanyahu is challenging the international community,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said in an e-mailed statement.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the AIPAC gathering this week that Israeli settlement construction in areas sought by Palestinians “exposes daylight between Israel and the United States that others in the region could hope to exploit.”(Time to announce again, daily reminders, to the international community that Jerusalem is not part of any deal ...!)
Proximity Talks
Israel has agreed to the U.S.-mediated “proximity” talks as a way to move to direct negotiations that Netanyahu has said are the only way to reach a peace agreement.
Palestinian leaders should begin direct negotiations with Israel on major issues linked to a Palestinian state and avoid indirect talks that could fail over lesser disputes, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said yesterday.
“Israel is ready to go into the room when it’s clear some decisions will be extremely painful to us,” Barak said during an interview in Washington on “The Charlie Rose Show.”
Israel’s Security
Barak, a former Israeli prime minister, said Israel’s security in proximity to a prospective Palestinian state on the West Bank would be high on his list of concerns. The minister and retired general said he wants to ensure that Israeli cities wouldn’t come under threat of rocket attacks from the West Bank as they have from the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon.
The U.S. has called on Israel to halt all construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Israel has imposed a partial freeze on building in the West Bank while saying construction in Jerusalem will continue.(
Obama, in the meeting with the Israeli leader, likely tried to “get a sense of whether Netanyahu was going to work with him to get a negotiating process started or not,” said Michele Dunne, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
“What we will be looking for over the next day or two is a signal out of the White House if they are satisfied with what Netanyahu offered them.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Gwen Ackerman in Washington at gackerman@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: March 24, 2010 03:44 EDT
