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Meeting Abbas, Obama Says a 2-State Deal Is ‘Still Possible’ Meeting Abbas, Obama Says a 2-State Deal Is ‘Still Possible’
(about 1 hour later)
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Hours after Palestinian militants fired at least two rockets from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip that crashed into the Israeli border city of Sderot on Thursday, President Obama traveled to the West Bank city of Ramallah and renewed his call for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians, saying that continued Israeli settlement-building did not advance the cause of peace. RAMALLAH, West Bank – President Obama, visiting the Israeli-occupied West Bank, appeared to move closer to the Israeli position on Thursday regarding resumption of long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians, stopping short of insisting on a halt to Israel’s settlement expansion as he had done early in his first term.
But, at a news conference with President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority and the secularist Fatah movement that rivals Hamas, Mr. Obama did not specifically call for a halt in settlement construction and urged both sides to press for a broad agreement that would meet two objectives: to provide sovereignty and a state for Palestinians and security for Israel. Hours after rockets from the Palestinian enclave of Gaza hit southern Israel, Mr. Obama met with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority on the second day of Mr. Obama’s Middle East trip, and challenged both sides to resume face-to-face talks, pledging the United States “would do our part.”
“The core issue right now is how do we get sovereignty for the Palestinian people and security for Israeli people,” he said after almost two hours of talks with Mr. Abbas. Mr. Obama condemned the rocket attacks, which broke a three-month cease-fire, but he insisted that the Israelis should not use violence as an excuse to avoid negotiations, no more than the Palestinians should insist that Israel halt construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank as a condition.
He added: “That’s not to say settlements aren’t important. That’s to say if we solve those two problems, the settlement issue will be resolved.” “If we’re going to be successful, part of what we’re going to have to do is get out of the formulas and habits that have blocked progress,” Mr. Obama said in a news conference with Mr. Abbas. “Both sides are going to have to think anew.”
Mr. Obama traveled to Ramallah after talks on Wednesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on the first day of his visit. Mr. Abbas reiterated his demand that Israel halt settlement construction, but he did not explicitly cite that as a condition for entering into direct talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Talks have basically been stalled since 2010.
“I’ve been clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leadership,” Mr. Obama said. “We do not consider continued settlement activity to be constructive, to be appropriate, to be something that can advance the cause of peace.” “It is the duty of the Israeli government to at least halt the activity, so we can speak of the issues,” Mr. Abbas said in Arabic, speaking through a translator. “The issue of settlements is clear: we never gave up our vision, whether now or previously.”
Mr. Obama said Palestinians deserved an end to occupation and to the “daily indignities that come with it,” and a “future of hope.” Mr. Abbas, who met with Mr. Obama for more than an hour at the fortresslike headquarters of the Palestinian Authority here, did not condemn the rocket attacks in his statement.
In short, he said, “Palestinians deserve a state of their own.” For Mr. Obama, even a brief foray to the West Bank on the second day of his trip was enough to plunge him back into the diplomatic nuances and perils of Middle East peacemaking.
President Obama called for a two-state solution and said “the only way to achieve that is through direct negotiations” between Israelis and Palestinians. “There’s no shortcut to a sustainable solution.” What was surprising, given how much Mr. Obama appeared to give up on the peace process at the end of his first term, was how ready he seemed to take up the challenge once again of trying to broker a deal that creates a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel.
“We cannot give up on the search for peace now matter how hard it is,” he said. He warned that a solution based on the creation of two states, side by side, for Israelis and Palestinians, was “still possible but very difficult.” “I absolutely believe it is still possible, but it is very difficult,” Mr. Obama said. “If we can get direct negotiations started again, I believe the shape of a potential deal is there.”
Mr. Obama condemned the rocket barrage from Gaza. Gesturing to his new secretary of state, John Kerry, Mr. Obama said the United States would resume its role of trying to bring together the two sides – a painstaking process that has previously involved adopting measures to get over decades of mistrust.
One of the rockets on Thursday landed in the courtyard of a house and another was discovered in an open area of the city, according to Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman. They did not cause injuries or damage, he said. An alert system had sounded as the rockets came in. Mr. Obama repeated his criticism of Jewish settlements, particularly in the strategically sensitive area of the West Bank known as the E1 zone. If the Israeli government were to go through with its announcement that it plans to develop that area, east of Jerusalem, Mr. Obama said it would be “very difficult to square with a two-state solution.”
Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006 in Gaza and then seized control of the enclave a year later, routing Fatah forces there. Though the two sides have signed several accords aimed at ending the Palestinian schism, Hamas remains entrenched in Gaza while Mr. Abbas’s authority is confined to parts of the West Bank. But Mr. Obama did not explicitly call for a halt to such expansion as a condition for peace talks to resume.
Mr. Netanyahu has been calling for a resumption of peace talks with Mr. Abbas, without preconditions, but has warned in the past that any practical reconciliation between Mr. Abbas and Hamas would stymie progress with Israel. The rockets from Gaza, which caused no damage or injuries, exploded in the courtyard of a house in the border town Sderot, which Mr. Obama had visited as a presidential candidate in 2008 and which he often cites as an example of the terror inflicted by these rockets.
Witnesses in Gaza said that militants had fired at least five rockets from the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun at around 7:30 a.m. Some apparently fell short or were not immediately located by the Israelis. “I’ve stood in Sderot, and met with children who simply want to grow up free from fear,” he said in a news conference Wednesday with Mr. Netanyahu.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility by any of the Palestinian groups in Gaza. There were other signs of a chillier welcome for Mr. Obama in the West Bank than he received a day earlier in Jerusalem. A small band of Palestinians staged an anti-Obama protest on a hillside east of Jerusalem Wednesday, unfurling a banner that said, “Obama: You promised hope and change, you gave us colonies and apartheid.”
These were the first rockets to land in a built-up area since November. A single rocket was fired by Gaza militants in late February and landed harmlessly on a road outside the city of Ashkelon. That was apparently a response to the death of a Palestinian prisoner in disputed circumstances in an Israeli jail. Israel temporarily closed a commercial goods crossing into Gaza in response. Still, the meeting came amid new signs that Mr. Abbas is eager to return to negotiations with the Israelis. A draft copy of his talking points for the session with Mr. Obama, obtained by The New York Times, suggested that Mr. Abbas was ready to soften his long-held demand that Mr. Netanyahu halt all building of Jewish settlements as precondition for the Palestinians returning to talks with the Israelis.
Israel has violated the cease-fire several times by firing on Gaza fishermen and farmers approaching newly relaxed security perimeters, but the agreement has otherwise held. If Mr. Netanyahu were to assure Mr. Abbas privately that building would be halted while negotiations were under way, the draft said, that would be sufficient. Palestinians officials cautioned Wednesday evening that the talking points for Mr. Abbas had not been completed.
The coastal enclave of Gaza is controlled by the Islamic militant group Hamas. While several other militant groups there have the capability to fire rockets into Israel, Hamas has in recent months demonstrated its ability to enforce the cease-fire, leading many Israeli analysts to conclude that the other groups would not fire without Hamas’s assent. The president’s visit, administration officials said, is part of a concerted push to show American support for the Palestinian Authority, which has been hamstrung by a fiscal crisis and fighting a loss of credibility since its Islamic militant rival, Hamas, won Palestinian elections in Gaza in 2006 and seized control of the territory a year later.
Salah al-Bardawil, a Hamas official in Gaza, said in a telephone interview that Hamas was not aware of any rocket attacks and was checking the Israeli reports. He called for Israel to lift all remaining restrictions on Gaza and for a mutual commitment to the cease-fire. On Wednesday in Jerusalem, Mr. Obama noted that last year was the first year in four decades in which not a single Israeli citizen was killed in a terrorist act originating in the West Bank.
Mr. Bardawil added that in November, President Obama had given Israel a “green light to destroy Gaza.” Mr. Obama “speaks in the language of Israel,” Mr. Bardawil said, “talking about Israel’s security and not about the Palestinian people’s right to live.” But Mr. Obama has also muted his call for Israel to halt the construction of Jewish settlements. In his speech to the Muslim world in 2009, he said this “construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.”
Hamas, which rejects Israel’s right to exist, is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel. In Jerusalem on Wednesday, Mr. Obama did not use the word settlements when he offered an explanation of why his first-term peacemaking efforts had failed. Mr. Obama spent Thursday morning at the Israel Museum viewing the Dead Sea scrolls, Hebrew parchments that testify to the ancient link of the Jewish people to this land.
Mr. Obama visited Sderot as a candidate in 2008. Because the town is so close to the Gaza border, Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which Mr. Obama inspected on Wednesday when he landed in Tel Aviv, cannot be deployed there. Pressed about settlements by a Palestinian reporter, Mr. Obama described them as “inappropriate.” But he also said he understood that the politics of settlements in Israel were complicated.
After the rocket fire on Thursday, a senior Israeli official said: “We will be watching very closely today to see if President Abbas condemns this rocket attack against Israeli civilians. Last year in the face of similar attacks he refused to condemn these acts by terrorists in Gaza.” Mr. Netanyahu has been calling for a resumption of peace talks with Mr. Abbas, without preconditions, but has warned in the past that any practical reconciliation between Mr. Abbas and Hamas would stymie any progress with Israel.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate diplomatic situation, added, “We will also be watching closely to see if President Abbas will cease his unity talks with Hamas. These rockets this morning were launched from territory controlled by Hamas, an organization that totally opposes peace and reconciliation with Israel.” After the rocket fire, a senior Israeli official said, “We will be watching very closely today to see if President Abbas condemns this rocket attack against Israeli civilians. Last year in the face of similar attacks he refused to condemn these acts by terrorists in Gaza.”
According to Army Radio, Israel’s foreign ministry has instructed its ambassadors around the world to emphasize to the media that Israel is seeking peace while the Palestinians fire rockets.
“Let Obama come and see how people live,” Sara Haziza, whose yard in Sderot was the site where one of the rockets exploded Thursday morning, said on Army Radio. “We build houses and villas, but we live inside a cage, in a protected room.”
“Let Obama come and see how an 8-year-old girl has to run to a protected room that is completely open,” she added, “and how I can’t close the door of the protected room.”

Mark Landler reported from Ramallah and Alan Cowell from Paris. Isabel Kershner and Jodi Rudoren contributing reporting from Jerusalem, and Fares Akram from Gaza.

Mark Landler reported from Ramallah and Alan Cowell from Paris. Isabel Kershner and Jodi Rudoren contributing reporting from Jerusalem, and Fares Akram from Gaza.