Monday November 9, 2009

Obama, Netanyahu to meet as US peace bid flounders

By Jeffrey Heller and Ross Colvin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the Palestinians on Monday to resume negotiations with Israel, issuing the call before a meeting with President Barack Obama on the stalled Middle East peace process.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem November 1, 2009. (REUTERS/Gali Tibbon/Pool/Files)

Saying "no Israeli government has been so willing to restrain settlement activity," Netanyahu told a conference of American Jewish leaders: "I say today to (Palestinian President) Mahmoud Abbas ... let us seize the moment to reach a

historic agreement. Let us begin talks immediately."

"My goal is not negotiations for the sake of negotiations. My goal is to achieve a permanent peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians -- and soon," he said.

"Let's get on with it. Let's move," he said, echoing appeals he has made in the past.

The White House meeting is likely to anger Palestinians, who are already frustrated by what they perceive as backsliding by the Obama administration on the contentious issue of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu has rebuffed Obama's call for an immediate halt to settlement construction under a 2003 peace "road map." Abbas has made a settlement freeze a precondition for restarting peace talks with Israel, suspended since December.

Obama's drive to revive the peace process faced a setback last week when Abbas, voicing frustration over the U.S. position on settlements, said he had no desire to stand in elections in January.

Such a move by the Western-backed Abbas could force a postponement in peace talks for months to come.

Israeli President Shimon Peres has asked Abbas to reconsider. Netanyahu made no such appeal in his speech at the conference of the Jewish Federations of North America.

Obama has since eased U.S. pressure on Israel over settlements, calling for restraint in construction where he had earlier pushed for a freeze. Palestinians say that shift in policy has killed any hope of reviving negotiations soon.

In Israel, the last-minute scheduling of the White House meeting after Israeli officials said over the past several weeks that Netanyahu hoped to see Obama, was widely seen as a sign of strained relations between the two leaders.

ARAB CRITICISM

Aides to Netanyahu said he and Obama would discuss the peace process and the nuclear standoff with Iran.

During a visit to the Middle East last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced strong Arab criticism over the U.S. stance on the settlement issue.

She insisted Washington still wanted a freeze on settlement construction but believed that resuming peace talks was the best way to curb them.

Palestinians say settlements on land Israel captured in a 1967 war could block the establishment of a state they hope to create in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is now controlled by Abbas's rival, the Islamist Hamas movement.

A U.S. official said the push for negotiations was aimed in part at seeing what Netanyahu envisioned when he offered to hold talks with Abbas immediately. Thus far most of the pressure had been on Abbas to agree to negotiations, the official said.

There had been doubts about whether Obama would even meet Netanyahu until Sunday afternoon, when a U.S. official confirmed Israeli media reports a session would go ahead.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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