The angry exchanges between the United States and the Israeli government have rekindled a White House debate over whether — and when — President Obama should propose an American plan to form the basis of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, senior administration officials said Wednesday.
The move would be a risky one for Mr. Obama at a time that the coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fragile and the Palestinians are deeply divided. Until now Mr. Obama has deflected calls to put his own plan, with territorial maps, on the table.
But in discussions in recent days, some senior officials have amplified their argument that the American approach needs to change. They said that Israel’s announcement that it would build 1,600 new houses in a disputed area of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, undermining a trip by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., further called into question the Netanyahu government’s commitment to seriously engaging in the peace talks.
After Washington condemned the housing announcement, Mr. Netanyahu apologized for its timing, but has so far not responded to American demands to rescind the building plan. The series of tense, back-channel interchanges between the two governments, in the words of one administration official, demonstrated to White House officials that “the current status quo won’t work, and won’t get us anywhere.”
If Mr. Obama decided to advance his own proposal, it would likely not be until his special envoy, former Senator George J. Mitchell, had engaged in several months of “proximity talks,” the indirect, American-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. There have been no Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in more than a year. The new round of indirect talks, which was supposed to begin this week, was delayed after the Israeli announcement.
Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Biden talked by telephone on Tuesday, but officials in both countries said little about the tone or details of their discussion. A senior administration official said that the United States was “still awaiting an Israeli response to our request that they take steps to build confidence for the proximity talks.”
He appeared to be referring to several demands made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last Friday. In a tense conversation, she told Mr. Netanyahu that it would not be enough to rescind the announcement of the new housing project; she insisted that he freeze any prominent building projects in East Jerusalem and agree that the proximity talks convened by Mr. Mitchell must deal with substantive issues about boundaries, the status of Jerusalem, security and refugees. Israel has so far insisted that the talks focus only on procedural questions.
Since Mr. Netanyahu already ignored a call by the administration last year for a temporary freeze on all settlements, White House officials are clearly concerned that the Israeli government is trying the same strategy again.
“There’s an issue of street credibility here,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who was deeply involved in the Camp David talks during the Clinton administration.
Mr. Miller said that while the administration had “been thinking for months” about the advantages and risks of putting its own plan on the table, “they are worried about being accused of imposing their own solution.”
But such a plan could also, in the minds of some senior American officials, force Mr. Netanyahu to choose between the peace talks and the right-wing elements of his coalition, or to try to form a new coalition with the more centrist Kadima Party, led by Tzipi Livni, the former foreign minister.
For now what has many in Washington worried most is the magnitude of the breach with Mr. Netanyahu, at a time that the two countries are intent on showing that they are working hand in hand on a strategy to counter Iran and its nuclear program.
Mr. Netanyahu on Wednesday had to distance himself from remarks made by his brother-in-law, Hagai Ben Artzi, in a radio interview, in which he described Mr. Obama as an anti-Semite. Mr. Netanyahu said that he “utterly rejected” the comments made by his wife’s brother, whose hawkish views are well known.
In a statement distributed by his office, Mr. Netanyahu added that he had a deep appreciation for Mr. Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security and for the profound relationship between Israel and the United States.
Israel also eased restrictions on entry to Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem for Muslim worshipers and visitors, and lifted a five-day closing that prevented Palestinians from entering the city from the West Bank. The clashes between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli forces that erupted Tuesday in and around East Jerusalem subsided.
While Israeli officials were not talking about their discussions with Obama administration officials, the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, who has served as a bridge between Mr. Netanyahu and the Obama administration in the past, floated a possible compromise formula of his own.
While addressing schoolchildren in the central Israeli city of Holon, Mr. Peres suggested making a distinction between Israeli building in Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem that were erected after 1967, and in the Arab neighborhoods where the majority of the city’s Palestinian population lives.
“Previous governments built in Jewish neighborhoods according to the new map and avoided construction in Arab neighborhoods,” Mr. Peres said. “The Palestinians and we decided to continue as such in the past until we reach an agreed-upon map.”
Regarding the current crisis, he said: “I am speaking with both American officials and Prime Minister Netanyahu on the issue. Everyone is interested in reaching an understanding.”
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