Israel, U.S. aim for trust

A confident Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting today in Washington with President Barack Obama, fully convinced that it's time to go beyond the "proximity talks" conducted by U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell and to move to direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

This is the fifth meeting between the two leaders since Obama took office in January 2009. It promises to be the friendliest. Officially described as a working visit, the White House summit is intended to establish trust between Obama and Netanyahu.

This was totally lacking in the past 18 months. Their last meeting in March was particularly humiliating for Netanyahu: no photo-op, no joint press conference, but instead -- open leaks to the press that Obama was angry at Israel's announcement of its intention to build 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem.

The purpose of this unstated public humiliation was to force Netanyahu to reform his government by expelling his extremist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, and replace him with former foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, a moderate. This attempt has failed. Now Obama, too, understands that in the present political situation in Israel, only Netanyahu can deliver any agreement with the Palestinians.

While the U.S. final position on direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is still unclear, there is an American-Israeli consensus that the insistence on unilateral Israeli concessions had caused 15 months of unnecessary delay in the peace effort.

Assuming that Netanyahu and Obama will agree on direct negotiations with the Palestinians, these will be conducted in two levels: one between Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, on key issues of borders and security; and another between Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, on building Palestinian institutions from the bottom up, under the watching eye of former British prime minister Tony Blair in his capacity as the Quartet's peace envoy. The first meeting took place Monday at Jerusalem's King David Hotel.

In advance of today's meeting at the White House, Abbas revealed a few interesting points about his proximity talks. In reply to George Mitchell's 16 questions, Abbas said he agreed to exchange 2.3 per cent of the West Bank for a similar amount of land which is under Israeli control in the Hebron area.

This is less than the six per cent of land that former prime minister Ehud Olmert suggested in order to incorporate three settlement blocs within Israel.

As to East Jerusalem, Abbas agreed that the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City, together with the Wailing Wall -- the Holiest Israeli place -- be annexed to Israel.

This, too, is less than what former president Bill Clinton suggested in 2000. Clinton suggested that the Jewish and the Armenian quarters be annexed to Israel, while the Muslim and Christian quarters would be under Palestinian control.

Former Palestinian chairman Yasser Arafat refused, arguing that "the Jews have never had any presence in Jerusalem." Abbas, then, is the first Palestinian leader who admits that the Jews have a historical presence in East Jerusalem. This is the reason for Mitchell's assertion that in his proximity talks with Abbas, he achieved progress and that the time has come for direct negotiations between the parties.

Instead of the "proximity talks", Mitchell sees his future role as facilitator and to offer some bridging ideas in case of a deadlock and if the parties want him to offer these ideas.

Obama and Netanyahu are expected to touch upon the tricky problem of the freezing of settlement building in East Jerusalem. Under strong Obama pressure, Netanyahu agreed to a 10-month moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank, which will expire on Sept. 26. Obama wants the suspension to continue.

In contrast, Netanyahu insists on resuming the building, especially after the Palestinians did not respond to any of Israel's gestures. It will be interesting to watch the language that both leaders will use on this tricky issue.

Netanyahu is expected to congratulate Obama for his success in having the UN Security Council approve stronger sanctions against Iran. Israel is particularly pleased with Obama's signing into law the harsher sanctions against Iran that were approved by the U.S. Congress.

Samuel Segev is the Free Press Middle East correspondent, based in Tel Aviv.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 6, 2010 A11