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Obama Meets With Palestinian Leader as Diplomacy Deadline Looms Jewish State Declaration an Unyielding Block to Deal
(about 9 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama met with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority at the White House on Monday, amid signs that the peace process has hit a roadblock over Israel’s insistence that the Palestinians formally recognize it as a Jewish state. WASHINGTON — With time running out before an April 29 diplomatic deadline and no signs of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, President Obama on Monday warned President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority that “we’re going to have to take some tough political decisions and risks if we’re able to move it forward.”
Mr. Obama, thrusting himself back into the talks as the deadline for the latest round of diplomacy looms, urged Mr. Abbas to sign on to a framework accord for a final round of negotiations, a senior administration official said on Sunday. But Mr. Abbas, speaking before a meeting in the Oval Office, made clear that he was no closer to uttering the words that are a litmus test for the Israelis: that he recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Obama made a similar case to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, pleading with both sides to accept the document being drafted by Secretary of State John Kerry. “Since 1988, we have recognized international legitimacy resolutions” on Israel, Mr. Abbas said as Mr. Obama looked on, a hand on his chin. “And in 1993, we recognized the State of Israel.”
But in recent weeks, the distance between the two seems to have widened over the question of Israel’s status as a nation-state for the Jewish people. Mr. Netanyahu has said Palestinian recognition of that is a prerequisite for a deal; Mr. Abbas has adamantly refused. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the Palestinians go further and recognize Israel as a nation-state for the Jewish people in order to get a peace deal. Mr. Abbas has flatly refused, and his comments on Monday suggested he had gone as far as he would.
The White House did not expect Mr. Obama to persuade Mr. Abbas to reverse his position in the Monday meeting, said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. He said the president would be looking for signs of flexibility – that Mr. Abbas “is willing to take some risks for the framework.” That leaves Mr. Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, in a tight spot just six weeks before the deadline that Mr. Kerry initially set for a peace treaty. Mr. Kerry has since scaled back expectations, saying that April 29 was a deadline for a framework accord that would guide the final negotiations. But even the fallback goal looks elusive.
“When you get down to the final stages, you get to the core issues of identity for both sides,” the official said. “The question is, what formulas can you come up with in the framework that would allow people to make tough decisions?” The Israelis and Palestinians continue to disagree over several other core issues. Mr. Abbas reiterated the Palestinian demand that East Jerusalem be the capital of a Palestinian state. With so much in dispute, analysts said, the focus on both sides has shifted from bridging gaps to avoiding blame should the talks fail.
The framework would set general terms on issues like Israeli security and the borders of a Palestinian state, which the two sides would use to come to a comprehensive agreement. Mr. Obama, who met with Mr. Netanyahu two weeks ago, made no direct reference to the deadline. But he praised Mr. Abbas and reiterated his version of a peace agreement that the Palestinians could embrace: a Palestinian state, based on borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, adjusted to account for Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Mr. Kerry, testifying before the House last week, expressed frustration that Israel’s Jewish identity had once again emerged as a potential deal-breaker, given, he said, that the United Nations has recognized Israel as a Jewish state, as did Yasir Arafat, the former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, on two occasions. That, combined with the challenging tone that Mr. Obama took toward Israel in a recent interview with the Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg, has led to speculation that the White House is trying to right the balance after a State Department-led effort that dwelt on issues that are of greater concern to Israel, like security.
“In this Middle Eastern version of Kremlinology, the tone has shifted,” said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel and Egypt. “Some of this may be the way the political wind is blowing. Some of it may reflect that they’ve reached a conclusion they need to rebalance.”
Even with the change in tone, however, analysts questioned whether Mr. Obama would take concrete steps that would antagonize Israel, especially with the West about to embark on another round of nuclear negotiations with Iran and amid deepening tensions over Ukraine.
“Now that he’s locked into this awful conflict with Putin, I find it anomalous that he would open another front with Netanyahu,” said Aaron David Miller, a former peace negotiator and vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting on Monday, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said the Palestinians saw no point in negotiating beyond the April deadline, and that now was a time for decisions.
There is another, more imminent, date that could jeopardize the process. Israel promised in July that it would free 104 Palestinian prisoners in four batches, and the last release date is March 29. Some Israeli officials warned that Mr. Netanyahu would not carry it out unless the talks were extended. Going ahead with the release would “give a very solid impression about the seriousness of these efforts to achieve peace,” Mr. Abbas said.
The White House did not expect Mr. Abbas to reverse his position on recognizing Israel as a Jewish state in the Monday meetings, said a senior administration official. But he said that Mr. Obama was looking for some signs of flexibility from Mr. Abbas.
“When you get down to the final stages, you get to the core issues of identity,” the official said on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the talks. The framework would set general terms on issues like Israeli security and the borders of a Palestinian state, which the two sides would use to come to a comprehensive agreement. Some analysts said the United States was drafting alternative documents — one robust and detailed, the other less so — as it tried to find a recipe acceptable to both sides.
On a logistical level, however, with Mr. Kerry locked in feverish diplomacy with Russia over Ukraine, it is not clear how much time he will be able to devote to Middle East horse-trading between now and the end of April.
The frustration of months of fruitless talks has begun to show in Mr. Kerry. Testifying before the House last week, he noted that the United Nations had recognized Israel as a Jewish state, as did Yasir Arafat, the former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
“I think it’s a mistake for some people to be raising it again and again as the critical decider of their attitude toward the possibility of a state and peace,” Mr. Kerry said.“I think it’s a mistake for some people to be raising it again and again as the critical decider of their attitude toward the possibility of a state and peace,” Mr. Kerry said.
That drew fire from Israeli officials, including Moshe Yaalon, the defense minister and a hard-line member of Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party. In an interview on Israeli television, he said he disagreed with Mr. Kerry’s remarks “in the most unequivocal way.”
“We cannot make an agreement without the other side recognizing our right to exist as the nations-state of the Jewish people within any borders,” Mr. Yaalon said.
Mr. Kerry was also criticized in Israel recently for suggesting that the country would face deepening isolation, including a growing boycott movement, if it did not strike a peace deal.
On Sunday, between meetings over the Ukraine crisis, Mr. Kerry held a preparatory meeting with Mr. Abbas, urging him “to make the tough decisions that will be necessary in the weeks ahead,” according to a senior State Department official.
“He also reiterated that we are at a pivotal time in the negotiations and while these issues have decades of history behind them, neither party should let tough political decisions stand in the way of a lasting peace,” the State Department official said.
When he began the current negotiations last summer, Mr. Kerry set a deadline of April for a deal. But as hopes for that have faded, he has defaulted to the a framework, which, if agreed to, would enable him to extend the talks until the end of 2014.