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Obama Said to Bring Up Settlements in Netanyahu Meeting Netanyahu Sees Arab Alliance Aiding Mideast Peace
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House on Wednesday, against the backdrop of a radically altered landscape in the Middle East that Mr. Netanyahu said he believed could help revive the moribund peace process with the Palestinians. WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday raised the tantalizing prospect that a new Arab alliance could resuscitate Israel’s moribund peace talks with the Palestinians, but President Obama responded with a familiar complaint — that Jewish settlements are the real problem.
But the president, who has had an often-difficult relationship with Mr. Netanyahu, told him that the Israeli government’s approval of plans for Jewish housing in East Jerusalem would impede the prospects for peace and jeopardize Israel’s relations with Arab nations, according to a senior administration official. In an Oval Office meeting that spoke to both the rapidly shifting landscape in the Middle East and the enduring realities of the peace process, Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu discussed how the militant group, Islamic State, was reshaping the region, with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states lining up with Israel against a common foe.
Speaking in the Oval Office before the meeting, Mr. Netanyahu said the threat of the Islamic State militant group, and the efforts of the United States to marshal a coalition of Arab nations to fight it, had produced a “commonality of interests between Israel and leading Arab states.” That new alignment, Mr. Netanyahu declared in a speech on Monday at the United Nations, could be the foundation for the renewal of the Palestinian peace negotiations, which fell apart in April over Jewish settlements and other disputes. It has also left the Israeli leader in an arguably stronger position in the region, if not internationally.
Administration officials, however, said they were unconvinced by Mr. Netanyahu’s suggestion that a coalition of Arab countries could succeed where direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians had failed. And Mr. Obama in his meeting with Mr. Netanyahu kept the spotlight squarely on the settlements, raising objections to Israel’s recent approval of plans for 2,610 housing units on geographically sensitive land in East Jerusalem. If the construction advances, a White House press spokesman said after the meeting, it would not only impede peace talks but poison relations with the very Arab countries with whom Mr. Netanyahu said Israel now had a “commonality of interests” against the militants.
The harsh words punctured Mr. Netanyahu’s argument, in his first face-to-face meeting with Mr. Obama in six months, that there was at least one silver lining to the Islamic State’s conquest of parts of Syria and Iraq — that it could help Israel overcome old enmities with the Arab world.
Mr. Obama, who has long had fraught relations with Mr. Netanyahu, did not invite him to stay for lunch after their meeting and seemed more focused on the threats than the opportunities from the chaos convulsing the region. In addition to settlements, he said Israel’s recent military offensive against Hamas in Gaza underscored that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians was unsustainable. “We have to find ways to change the status quo so that both Israeli citizens are safe in their own homes and schoolchildren in their schools from the possibility of rocket fire,” he said, “but also that we don’t have the tragedy of Palestinian children being killed as well.”
The Israeli leader thanked the president for America’s backing during the Gaza conflict, particularly through the Iron Dome antimissile system, and voiced support for the campaign against the Islamic State.
“We should work very hard together to seize on those common interests and build a positive program to advance a more secure, more prosperous and a more peaceful Middle East,” he said.“We should work very hard together to seize on those common interests and build a positive program to advance a more secure, more prosperous and a more peaceful Middle East,” he said.
At the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel’s new alignment with Arab states could provide the foundation for the renewal of peace talks with the Palestinians, which have been on hiatus since April when talks brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry collapsed. Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. Netanyahu came as Palestinian diplomats were petitioning the United Nations Security Council to set a deadline of November 2016 for Israel to withdraw from the territory on the West Bank it has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Mr. Obama, however, appeared focused less on the opportunities than on the threats from the string of crises in the region. In addition to raising the issue of settlements, he said Israel’s recent military offensive against Hamas in Gaza underscored that the current conflict between Israelis and Palestinians was unsustainable. While a Security Council vote on the Palestinian resolution is not imminent, administration officials said, it underscores Israel’s deepening isolation in the United Nations and the international community. The White House drove home those dangers in an unusually pointed statement about the housing units, read by the press secretary, Josh Earnest.
“We have to find ways to change the status quo so that both Israeli citizens are safe in their own homes and schoolchildren in their schools from the possibility of rocket fire,” Mr. Obama said, “but also that we don’t have the tragedy of Palestinian children being killed, as well. Mr. Earnest also condemned the occupation of seven residences in a largely Arab neighborhood next to Jerusalem’s Old City by Jewish families. The houses were bought by a right-wing organization that buys properties in Arab neighborhoods.
“We’ll discuss extensively both the situation of rebuilding Gaza, but also how can we find a more sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians.” Some of the White House’s skepticism about Mr. Netanyahu’s theory stems from the fact that he has offered few details about what these countries would do to forge a peace deal. He has also criticized the Arab Peace Initiative, a 2002 Saudi proposal that diplomats say would form the basis for any Arab coalition.
The meeting with Mr. Netanyahu came as Palestinian diplomats were petitioning the United Nations Security Council to set a deadline of November 2016 for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank, which it has occupied since the 1967 war. The last time Mr. Netanyahu was at the White House, in March, he was greeted by a late-winter snowstorm and frosty words from Mr. Obama, who complained on the eve of his visit that time was running out for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.
The last time Mr. Netanyahu was at the White House, in March, he was greeted by a late-winter snowstorm and frosty words from Mr. Obama, who complained in an interview with the columnist Jeffrey Goldberg that time was running out for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. When Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace effort faltered a month later, he faulted Israel for spoiling the atmosphere with new settlements. And when Mr. Kerry tried to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, members of Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet excoriated him, saying he had tilted in favor of Hamas.
Things went downhill from there. When Mr. Kerry’s peace effort faltered a month later, he faulted Israel for authorizing new settlements in the West Bank. And when Mr. Kerry tried to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, members of Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet excoriated him, saying he had tilted in favor of Hamas. Mr. Obama, who once listed the peace process as one of his top foreign-policy priorities, is now consumed with fighting the Islamic State. But some things have not changed. Mr. Netanyahu warned the president against signing a nuclear deal with Iran that would leave it on a cusp of producing a nuclear bomb.
Much has changed in seven months. Mr. Obama, who once listed the peace process as one of his top foreign-policy priorities, is now consumed with fighting the Islamic State. But some things have not changed. Mr. Netanyahu on Wednesday warned the president against signing a nuclear deal with Iran that would leave it on a cusp of producing a nuclear bomb. Mr. Obama said little about the nuclear talks, which have hit snags on the number of uranium centrifuges Iran would be allowed to retain. But he echoed Mr. Netanyahu on the value of new alliances in the region, saying there was a need for a “shift in Arab states and Muslim countries that isolates the cancer of violent extremism that is so pernicious.”
“Iran seeks a deal that would lift the tough sanctions that you’ve worked so hard to put in place, and leave it as a threshold nuclear power,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “I fervently hope that under your leadership that would not happen.”
Mr. Obama offered no new details on the nuclear talks, which have hit serious snags on the number of uranium centrifuges Iran would be allowed to retain. But he alluded to the changes that the emergence the Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL, have wrought in the Middle East.
“I’ll debrief Bibi on the work that we’re doing to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL,” the president said, using a nickname for the Israeli leader. He added that the two leaders would discuss the necessity for a “shift in Arab states and Muslim countries that isolates the cancer of violent extremism that is so pernicious and ultimately has killed more Muslims than anything else.”