Declaring that he intended to “confound the critics and the skeptics,” an upbeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told an audience of foreign policy experts in New York on Thursday that he was ready to begin direct peace talks with the Palestinians “next week” or even sooner. “Just get on with it,” he said.
Mr. Netanyahu acknowledged in an address to the Council on Foreign Relations that “skepticism is warranted,” given the dismal record of such negotiations and the precariousness of his own position at the head of a fractious coalition dominated by pro-settler parties. But he vowed he was “prepared to take risks, political risks,” to achieve peace.
President Obama seemed to offer Mr. Netanyahu some political cover on the issue in a meeting on Tuesday at the White House, widely seen as a attempt to patch relations after public disagreements between the allies about the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Mr. Obama shifted the emphasis from stopping settlements to reinvigorating the peace process, saying he hoped the establishment of direct talks would “create a climate” that would lead to breakthroughs.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 News, Mr. Obama’s first with an Israeli television station since he became president, he continued with that theme, saying he believed that Mr. Netanyahu was well placed to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians. Mr. Obama said that a deal, though wrenching and difficult, could be achieved in his presidential term.
It was unclear whether the upbeat assessments by the two leaders were based mainly on a desire to signal a more cooperative relationship between them, or on genuine optimism that the conditions for negotiating a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority had improved. Neither mentioned any substantive change in policy, including on the deeply divisive settlements question, which could break the impasse in talks with the Palestinians.
Mr. Netanyahu, in fact, indicated that he did not intend to extend a 10-month moratorium on housing starts in West Bank settlements that expires in September, saying, “I think we’ve done enough.”
In his television interview, Mr. Obama struck a relaxed and friendly tone and emphasized his commitment to Israel’s security.
Asked about the anxiety of many Israelis who feel that he does not have a special bond with Israel, Mr. Obama said that “some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion.” His reaching out to the Muslim world might have been another factor, he added.
But he noted: “Ironically, I’ve got a chief of staff named Rahm Israel Emanuel. My top political adviser is somebody who is a descendant of Holocaust survivors. My closeness to the Jewish-American community was probably what propelled me to the U.S. Senate.”
Speaking to Israeli fears over making concessions to the Palestinians, he referred to the rocket attacks that followed Israeli withdrawals from Gaza and southern Lebanon and failed attempts to negotiate a peace deal in the past. He described Israeli skepticism and worries as “legitimate,” but he argued that they had to be overcome, as the window of opportunity was “fairly narrow.”
“We probably won’t have a better opportunity than we have right now. And that has to be seized,” he said.
Mr. Netanyahu delivered much the same message in New York on Thursday, saying, “I think that we should seize the moment, and it is a challenging and important moment, when we have the ability to achieve peace.” But he added, “I need a partner.”
Asked later whether he thought the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, were such a partner, Mr. Netanyahu offered a tepid endorsement, saying, “I won’t rule out the possibility of leadership.”
In other Israel news:
The government of the Palestinian Authority called on the Obama administration on Thursday to end tax breaks to American donors financing Jewish settlements and settler groups in the West Bank. The government issued a statement citing a New York Times investigation published Tuesday, which found that at least 40 American groups had collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the last decade.
The family members of a captured Israeli soldier, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, on Thursday completed a 12-day march from their home in northern Israel to Jerusalem, part of a public campaign to press the government to reach a prisoner exchange deal with the Islamic militant group Hamas. Tens of thousands of Israelis joined segments of the march and rallies along the way. Sergeant Shalit, 23, was seized by Hamas in June 2006.
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