Analysis: A critical US-Israel issue is left open

[July 07, 2010]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama played the good cop in his latest face-to-face with Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking to bolster the Israeli prime minister's standing at home with honeyed praise for his readiness to make peace with the Palestinians.

Obama's declarations Tuesday about the "unbreakable" bond that links the United States and Israel should boost Netanyahu's standing among Israelis.

The warm words also could help Obama rebut domestic critics who complain he has been too tough on the Israelis and his Mideast policy is tilting toward the Arabs.

Yet, the hard-liners in Netanyahu's coalition government will probably not be won over. They have no interest in answering Palestinian demands for a freeze on settlement building in return for direct peace talks.

And that's still the critical issue between the U.S. and Israel, one neither Netanyahu nor Obama addressed after their fifth meeting since Obama took office 17 months ago.

Netanyuhu sidestepped that question again Wednesday in an interview broadcast on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"The simplest way to advance peace is to put aside all the grievances and all the preconditions," he said, asserting he's "ready to sit down" with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to discuss peace "without preconditions."

Asked what concrete steps he was willing to take to set the framework for new talks, Netanyahu said his government already had relaxed "hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints" in addition to its decision to ease the Gaza Strip blockade.

But he also told ABC that "we have to have very strong security arrangements so that the areas that we vacate do not turn into Iranian strongholds. We have some very clear requirements. ... The Palestinians will have very clear requirements."

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday, both Netanyahu and Obama had ducked a question about the Israeli leader's plans for extending a limited freeze on West Bank settlements. The moratorium expires in September.

While stark differences remain, the tone was far warmer than it was when Obama and Netanyahu were last together. That was in the spring and Obama was upset over Israeli policies in disputed East Jerusalem. He had Netanyahu to the White House in the evening, out of sight of reporters.

After this meeting, however, the leaders' Oval Office remarks were expansive, but -- when carefully studied -- held little or nothing new.

Obama praised Israel for easing its Gaza blockade, allowing in consumer goods, after heated international criticism for the deadly interception of a Turkish aid flotilla.

The president said he believed Netanyahu "was willing to take risks for peace," and heatedly rejected the premise of a question about having given the Israeli leader the cold shoulder in recent months.

Netanyahu said he was "committed" to peace with the Palestinians and said it was "high time to begin direct talks." He praised Obama for leading the U.N. Security Council to a new round of sanctions against Iran over its suspected nuclear arms program.

He was fulsome in thanking Obama "for reaffirming to me in private and now in public as you did the long-standing U.S. commitments to Israel on matters of vital strategic importance."

"To paraphrase Mark Twain," the Israeli leader said, "reports about the demise of the special U.S.-Israel ... relationship aren't just premature, they're just flat wrong."

The two leaders had gotten off on the wrong foot right from the start when Netanyahu -- in their first White House meeting soon after Obama was sworn in -- publicly rebuffed the new president's call for a freeze on settlements.

The Netanyahu government compounded that negative start when it announced, during a fence-mending visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden, plans for a large settlement expansion in east Jerusalem.

Regardless of that history, Netanyahu and Obama were emphatic that relations had never gone sour. What's more, they agreed, it was time for the Palestinians to come to the table again for yet another try at face-to-face peace talks.

At the Palestinian mission in Washington, officials said there would be no response for at least a day, not long in the context of nearly six decades of conflict since Israel was established.

[Associated Press; By STEVEN R. HURST]

Steven R. Hurst has written about international relations for 30 years.

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