Obama reaffirms Israel ties in Netanyahu meet 10Nov09 November 11, 2009
Ma’an News Agency - 10 November 2009
US President Barack Obama reaffirmed his commitment to Israel during a closed-door meeting with the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the White House on Monday evening.
“The president reaffirmed our strong commitment to Israel’s security, and discussed security cooperation on a range of issues,” according to statement issued by the White House after the one hour, 40 minute meeting, as quoted in the online version of the Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz.
The 7pm meeting was said to address ways of re-starting the long-dormant Palestinian-Israeli peace process, as well as concerns about Iran and its nuclear program.
For part of the meeting, the two leaders were joined by other Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Ambassador Michael Oren, National Security Council chief Uzi Arad, and Yitzhak Molcho, Netanyahu’s personal envoy to talks in Washington.
Netanyahu and Obama were originally scheduled to meet earlier in the day and hold a joint news conference. The summit was bumped until later in the day as Obama flew to the Fort Hood military base in Texas, where an off-duty army psychiatrist shot dead 13 people last week.
The rescheduling was interpreted in Israel, however, as a sign of strained ties between the two countries.
One of the issues thought to be up for discussion during the meeting was Israel’s refusal to abide by prior commitments to stop building settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank. Obama has urged a settlement freeze in the past, but his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, seemed to soften that position during a visit to the Middle East last week.
Before the meeting, however, the White House said it still wanted a settlement freeze. “The policy of the United States government for many decades has been: no more settlements, that’s not something that is new [with] this administration,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Netanyahu’s visit to Washington also comes days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he plans to step down, citing the US’ failure to apply sufficient pressure to compel a halt to settlements. Abbas’ declaration is seen as a sign that Obama’s peace initiative is losing traction.
Also on Monday a State Department spokesperson said that Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, currently has no plans to return to the region.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is to fly on Tuesday to France, where he is to meet with President Nicholas Sarkozy.
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“There are no free meetings” by Orly Azulai and Zvi Singer, Yedioth Ahronoth (p4) 10 November 2009
The Obama administration proved yesterday for the umpteenth time that there are no free lunches in Washington.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was kept waiting for an answer to his request to meet with the US president. Only yesterday morning, once he had landed in the United States in order to attend General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, did confirmation from the White House arrive.
The Wall Street Journal reported last night that the delay in confirming the meeting was deliberate and was geared to apply pressure on Netanyahu. An American official who was quoted by the newspaper said that the United States wanted Netanyahu to state in his speech before the General Assembly his clear support of the concept of two states for two peoples. The official told the newspaper: we are at a stage in the process in which you can expect something and give nothing in return.
Indeed, at the podium at the Marriot Hotel in Washington, addressing the 3,000 people in attendance at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, which is headed by the Israeli billionaire of Russian origin, Leonid Nevzlin, Netanyahu voiced his consent to a solution based on two states for two peoples. He called to begin negotiations immediately and without preconditions, and promised to make far-reaching concessions for the sake of peace.
Netanyahu said that he did not want negotiations for the sake of negotiations, but in order to achieve permanent peace between Israel and the Arab states and mainly between Israel and the Palestinians. He said: I call on Abu Mazen: let’s get started, let’s move forward. Let’s get into immediate negotiations without preconditions. I am prepared to make large concessions for the sake of peace, but I will never compromise on Israel’s security. According to the Wall Street Journal, the statements made by Netanyahu were a condition that the White House set for the meeting with Obama to be held.
In the preparatory meetings held by Israeli and American teams in advance of the meeting, the Americans made it clear that they expected Israel to take steps to strengthen Abu Mazen, including to release Fatah prisoners from Israeli jails as a gesture to the Palestinian Authority chairman, and to remove additional roadblocks in the West Bank. This would seem to indicate that Abu Mazen’s threats to resign have had an impact on Obama. The issue of a prisoner release was supposed to be on the agenda of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting. A short time before the meeting the prime minister’s media adviser said: “If a request of that sort is made, we will address it positively.”
Netanyahu did not say a word about a settlement construction freeze in his speech, and a White House spokesman said in the aftermath of that speech that the United States had not changed its position on the matter.
While Obama ultimately agreed to meet Netanyahu, the meeting that was scheduled for before dawn this morning Israel time was nearly covert: it was held without any media coverage, without a festive press conference, and even without a joint photograph of the two men.
Leaders who come to meet US President Barack Obama generally are received regally, and the visit becomes a media event. Journalists are given an opportunity to ask a question or two, the photojournalists capture the leaders sitting in their armchairs near the fireplace holding a conversation of pleasantries, and when the weather permits, the president invites the guest out to the Rose Garden. But Obama invited Netanyahu in for a brief meeting, at night, far from the spotlights. The White House, prior to confirming that a meeting would be held, created the impression in the media that the meeting was undesirable. But Netanyahu chose not to take offense.
In closed conversations that Netanyahu held with his aides prior to his meeting with Obama he said: “We are prepared to go a long way and to be generous—both in restraining construction as a gesture for the purpose of setting the negotiations in motion, and in concessions in order to reach an arrangement, but we will not compromise on security arrangements, and that means preventing the entry of weapons to any area that Israel leaves.” Netanyahu also told his aides: “In the past 16 years there has never been a demand that construction be suspended as a condition for starting negotiations, nor was there Israeli willingness to restrain construction prior to a commencement of negotiations.”
Aides to the prime minister said last night that Netanyahu intended to say to President Obama in their meeting: “We mean business.”
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