Direct Middle East Talks May Be Imminent

Obama Says Direct Middle East Talks May Be Imminent (Update1)

By Jonathan Ferziger and Roger Runningen

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said direct Israel-Palestinian talks may get started within less than three months, praising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a leader prepared to take “risks for peace.”

Obama and Netanyahu, speaking to reporters at the White House yesterday after an 80-minute meeting, both said they wanted to dispel concerns that the U.S. commitment to Israel has been weakened by disputes over construction in West Bank settlements and east Jerusalem. The two leaders ate lunch together with advisers.

“I’ve trusted Prime Minister Netanyahu since I met him before I was elected president,” Obama said, sitting opposite the Israeli leader in the Oval Office. “I think that he is dealing with a very complex situation in a very tough neighborhood.”

Obama has been trying to persuade Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to move beyond the indirect talks they have been conducting, through U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, and hold face-to-face negotiations. The president indicated that direct talks may take place before the expiration of a Netanyahu’s temporary West Bank construction freeze on Sept. 26.

“My hope is that once direct talks have begun -- well before the moratorium has expired -- that that will create a climate in which everybody feels a greater investment in success,” Obama said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, speaking today during a visit to Vilnius, Lithuania, said direct talks can begin “in about September.”

More Progress

Abbas, who visited Obama at the White House on June 9, says he wants to see more progress in the indirect talks before going to the negotiating table with Netanyahu. He has ruled out moving from the so-called proximity talks to direct negotiations unless Israel halts all settlement construction in the West Bank.

Abbas said during a visit to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia today that Palestinians are waiting for “a signal from the Israeli government,” which must agree to stop building settlements and show willingness to negotiate on a two-state solution, Zuhair Alshun, the Palestinian ambassador in Ethiopia, said in a phone interview.

The fact that the president suggested that direct talks are imminent means “he knows something that we don’t,” Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, said in a telephone interview.

‘Helpful Atmosphere’

“What Obama now understands is that fighting with the Israelis is inevitable and appropriate if it’s driven by a strategy that can ultimately make the president, Israel and the Arabs look good,” said Miller, who was a member of the U.S. Middle East mediating team under former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

Netanyahu’s moratorium, though “riddled with holes,” has still “created an atmosphere that has been helpful diplomatically,” Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the Washington-based American Task Force on Palestine, a group that advocates for a peaceful end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, said in a telephone interview.

The president described U.S.-Israeli ties as an “unbreakable” bond and said he had an “excellent” discussion with Netanyahu.

“The U.S. will never ask Israel to take risks that would undermine its security,” Obama said.

Biden Row

U.S. officials say that relations between the two countries have grown closer since March, when Israel’s announcement of an east Jerusalem housing plan in the midst of a visit by Vice President Joe Biden drew criticism from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“I think we can say with some degree of encouragement that the relationship between the United States and Israel is back on track,” Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman said at a press conference today while visiting Jerusalem.

The Israeli prime minister told reporters that he and Obama “discussed concrete steps” that can be taken immediately and over the coming days and weeks “to move the peace process further along.” Netanyahu didn’t offer specifics.

Obama referred to them as a “range” of confidence- building measures that would lead to direct talks. “It’s high time to begin direct talks,” Netanyahu said.

Gaza Operation

“Israelis are prepared to do a lot for peace but they want to make sure” no threat emerges such as the 2007 seizure of the Gaza Strip by Hamas, Netanyahu said after the meeting with Obama. The Islamic movement rejects Israel’s right to exist and fired about 3,200 rockets and mortars into Israel in 2008, according to the Israeli army. Israel cited the attacks as the reason for its military offensive in Gaza in December 2008, which left more than 1,000 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead.

Hamas, classified as a terrorist group by the U.S. and Israel, continued to fire missiles after the operation. The number of projectiles fired from Gaza totaled 708 last year and about 160 so far this year, the army said June 8.

Obama and Netanyahu conferred on what they say is the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. Netanyahu praised sanctions that Obama signed into law last week, targeting Iranian gasoline imports and banking access, as measures that “bite.”

Obama also warned that he would fight efforts to focus on Israel’s atomic program at a Middle East nuclear conference planned for 2012.

“The president emphasized that the conference will only take place if all countries feel confident that they can attend, and that any efforts to single out Israel will make the prospects of convening such a conference unlikely,” the White House said in a statement issued after the meeting with Netanyahu.