Netanyahu Sees Arab Alliance Aiding Mideast Peace
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.”
In every circumstance Obama has tilted to towards Muslims.
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