Israeli PM seeks direct talks with Palestinians as outcome of White House summit this week

Israeli PM: Need direct talks with Palestinians

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister on Sunday endorsed a U.S. call for direct peace talks with the Palestinians, seeking to set a positive tone as he heads to the White House this week for talks with President Barack Obama.

After a rocky meeting between the two leaders in March, both Israel and the U.S. are taking great pains to sound more upbeat this time around. But underlying the meeting is the fact that despite a year and a half of U.S. diplomacy, Israelis and Palestinians can’t even agree on whether to sit down together to talk.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long been calling for direct talks, but Palestinians have been wary of giving legitimacy to a hard-line Israeli government they view with suspicion.

“I have been willing to meet Abu Mazen from the first day of this government,” Netanyahu said Sunday at a session of the Israeli Cabinet, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, “and the time has come for him to be prepared to meet with us, because there is no other way to advance peace.”

“I hope this will be one of the results of the visit to Washington,” Netanyahu said.

Also on the agenda during Tuesday’s meeting will be Israel’s continuing response to the international outcry that followed the bloodshed aboard an international protest ship that to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Under U.S. pressure, Israel has agreed to ease the blockade to allow in more goods and construction materials — desperately needed to rebuild the war-torn area.

Netanyahu said Sunday that finding a way to resume direct peace talks with the Palestinians will be his main goal.

After months of efforts, the U.S. managed to persuade the Palestinians to begin indirect negotiations with Israel through White House envoy George Mitchell. The former U.S. senator and broker of the historic Northern Ireland peace accord hopes to bring the sides together for full-fledged negotiations by the fall.

The Palestinians have demanded that Israel first freeze all construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — captured areas they claim as part of a future state. They also want Netanyahu to resume talks from where they broke off in December 2008 under his more dovish predecessor, Ehud Olmert.

Netanyahu has refused these demands, though he has slowed settlement construction. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said last week that Israel remains intransigent and that he saw no reason to talk face to face.

“If (Netanyahu) wants direct talks, he knows he has the key,” said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Daniel Shapiro, a top official for the Middle East in the White House, said last week that Mitchell was making progress.

“The gaps have narrowed,” he said. “And we believe there are opportunities to further narrow those gaps, to allow the sides to take that next step to the direct talks. And so we’re encouraged.”

Looming over this week’s meeting is the approaching end of Israel’s settlement slowdown, which it implemented last year to placate the U.S. and encourage the Palestinians to negotiate.

Netanyahu is under internal pressure from coalition partners to end the slowdown when it expires in September and resume construction in Israel’s West Bank settlements. About 300,000 Israelis live in the West Bank in the midst of some 2.5 million Palestinians.

Ending the freeze would infuriate the Palestinians and the White House, but renewing it would threaten the stability of Netanyahu’s coalition government, which is dominated by hard-liners who are sympathetic to the settlers.

One possible compromise would be to extend the freeze in return for a Palestinian agreement to enter direct talks. Netanyahu is expected to discuss this possibility with Obama. Netanyahu may also agree to build only in the so-called “blocs,” densely populated settlements that Israel will likely seek to retain under a final peace deal.

Abraham Diskin, a political analyst at Hebrew University, said the Obama and Netanyahu face another serious hurdle: their reported dislike for each other. “We must hope that despite the difference in personalities the chemistry will be better than in the past,” he said.

At their last meeting, which came during a flap over Israeli settlement construction, the White House played down Netanyahu’s visit and — in a rare slap to a close ally — photographers were not allowed to cover the session.

This time, in a sign of the attempt to improve relations, Netanyahu will appear in a joint news conference alongside the president, timed to coincide with TV prime time in Israel.

“In no way do we perceive a rift,” Shapiro said.