Obama to Focus on Two-State Solution in Meeting
Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 7:03 am
President Obama begins a weeks-long focus on Middle East diplomacy today as he meets for the first time with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who must show that he is able to get along with the new U.S. administration despite the significant policy differences between them.
Obama and Netanyahu will talk alone this morning at the White House, followed by a broader gathering of senior advisers. The two men, who have both taken office this year, will then hold a working lunch in the Old Family Dining Room.
Senior administration officials say their goal for this first meeting is to make as clear as possible to the hawkish Netanyahu that the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is the best way to establish regional peace.
Netanyahu's Likud Party has never endorsed a so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although Netanyahu himself did sign an agreement with the Palestinian leadership to share Hebron, a highly contested city in the occupied West Bank.
The Obama administration is reaching out to Arab nations for help in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which it sees as critical to regional stability in a way that the Bush administration did not.
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A proposal endorsed by the Arab League in 2002 would grant Israel recognition from all Arab nations in exchange for its withdrawal from all lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East War, including Syria's Golan Heights. Past Israeli governments have called the proposal a foundation for negotiation, but have ruled out its provision granting Palestinian refugees the right to return to homes inside the Jewish state.
Next week, Obama will host Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the White House for their first meeting.
The administration is counting on Mubarak, an autocratic ruler unpopular in his own country but an important regional player, to lobby Arab nations in favor of recognizing Israel, perhaps through a modified Arab peace proposal that softens the so-called right of return. Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries that currently recognize the Jewish state.
Obama will then travel to Egypt in early June to deliver an address to the Islamic world. The speech likely will focus primarily on U.S. relations with Muslims in the Arab Middle East, who were infuriated by the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq and what was perceived as its favoritism toward Israel on Palestinian issues.
But the Palestinian leadership is itself deeply divided between the relatively moderate Fatah movement of Mahmoud Abbas, which holds sway in the West Bank, and the armed Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and rejects Israel's right to exist. The split is preventing the national movement from developing a unified approach for how to pursue peace with Israel.
Abbas, who is president of the Palestinian Authority, is also scheduled to visit the White House next week. He leads the Palestine Liberation Organization, the umbrella group that represents Palestinians inside and outside of the occupied territories and is solely empowered to conduct peace talks with Israel. The organization does not include Hamas.
The Obama administration has signaled that it might accept a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, something the Bush administration and the previous Israeli government would not recognize despite the Islamist movement's victory in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Netanyahu, who was educated at MIT and served as Israel's prime minister from 1996 to 1999, plans on discussing with Obama Israel's concerns over Iran's nuclear program.
Although Iran's leaders say they are working to create nuclear power for civilian use, Netanyahu and others believe the program is designed to produce nuclear weapons, which Israel's government views as an existential threat to the Jewish state.
Senior Obama administration officials argue that Israel should make peace with the Palestinians first, then focus on Iran.
By doing so, the Israeli government would win the recognition of Sunni Arab governments in the Middle East, including such important regional powers as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who also fear Shiite Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Netanyahu, who took office in March at the head of a fragile and sharply hawkish coalition, believes time is running out to stop Iran's nuclear program. But he must be careful in making his case given that many Israelis are watching closely to see if a sometimes abrasive prime minister will get along with the new U.S. president, by far Israel's most important diplomatic relationship. The U.S. government provides the Jewish state nearly $3 billion in annual military aid.
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Yitzhak Shamir, another Likud prime minister, was not re-elected in 1992 largely because of his testy relationship with then-President George H.W. Bush. He was defeated by Yitzhak Rabin of the Labor Party, who signed the first mutual recognition agreements with the PLO and began the Oslo process toward the creation of a Palestinian state.
Senior Obama administration officials say they are viewing the Netanyahu, Mubarak and Abbas meetings as a single initial push for Middle East peace, culminating with the president's outreach to Islam in Egypt next month.
The region is watching to see how and if Obama, who has promised an early and continuous focus on Middle East peace, will depart from the Bush administration's late-inning efforts, which, critics say, yielded only symbolic results.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00825.html
Obama and Netanyahu will talk alone this morning at the White House, followed by a broader gathering of senior advisers. The two men, who have both taken office this year, will then hold a working lunch in the Old Family Dining Room.
Senior administration officials say their goal for this first meeting is to make as clear as possible to the hawkish Netanyahu that the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is the best way to establish regional peace.
Netanyahu's Likud Party has never endorsed a so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although Netanyahu himself did sign an agreement with the Palestinian leadership to share Hebron, a highly contested city in the occupied West Bank.
The Obama administration is reaching out to Arab nations for help in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which it sees as critical to regional stability in a way that the Bush administration did not.
ad_icon
A proposal endorsed by the Arab League in 2002 would grant Israel recognition from all Arab nations in exchange for its withdrawal from all lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East War, including Syria's Golan Heights. Past Israeli governments have called the proposal a foundation for negotiation, but have ruled out its provision granting Palestinian refugees the right to return to homes inside the Jewish state.
Next week, Obama will host Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the White House for their first meeting.
The administration is counting on Mubarak, an autocratic ruler unpopular in his own country but an important regional player, to lobby Arab nations in favor of recognizing Israel, perhaps through a modified Arab peace proposal that softens the so-called right of return. Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries that currently recognize the Jewish state.
Obama will then travel to Egypt in early June to deliver an address to the Islamic world. The speech likely will focus primarily on U.S. relations with Muslims in the Arab Middle East, who were infuriated by the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq and what was perceived as its favoritism toward Israel on Palestinian issues.
But the Palestinian leadership is itself deeply divided between the relatively moderate Fatah movement of Mahmoud Abbas, which holds sway in the West Bank, and the armed Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and rejects Israel's right to exist. The split is preventing the national movement from developing a unified approach for how to pursue peace with Israel.
Abbas, who is president of the Palestinian Authority, is also scheduled to visit the White House next week. He leads the Palestine Liberation Organization, the umbrella group that represents Palestinians inside and outside of the occupied territories and is solely empowered to conduct peace talks with Israel. The organization does not include Hamas.
The Obama administration has signaled that it might accept a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, something the Bush administration and the previous Israeli government would not recognize despite the Islamist movement's victory in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Netanyahu, who was educated at MIT and served as Israel's prime minister from 1996 to 1999, plans on discussing with Obama Israel's concerns over Iran's nuclear program.
Although Iran's leaders say they are working to create nuclear power for civilian use, Netanyahu and others believe the program is designed to produce nuclear weapons, which Israel's government views as an existential threat to the Jewish state.
Senior Obama administration officials argue that Israel should make peace with the Palestinians first, then focus on Iran.
By doing so, the Israeli government would win the recognition of Sunni Arab governments in the Middle East, including such important regional powers as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who also fear Shiite Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Netanyahu, who took office in March at the head of a fragile and sharply hawkish coalition, believes time is running out to stop Iran's nuclear program. But he must be careful in making his case given that many Israelis are watching closely to see if a sometimes abrasive prime minister will get along with the new U.S. president, by far Israel's most important diplomatic relationship. The U.S. government provides the Jewish state nearly $3 billion in annual military aid.
ad_icon
Yitzhak Shamir, another Likud prime minister, was not re-elected in 1992 largely because of his testy relationship with then-President George H.W. Bush. He was defeated by Yitzhak Rabin of the Labor Party, who signed the first mutual recognition agreements with the PLO and began the Oslo process toward the creation of a Palestinian state.
Senior Obama administration officials say they are viewing the Netanyahu, Mubarak and Abbas meetings as a single initial push for Middle East peace, culminating with the president's outreach to Islam in Egypt next month.
The region is watching to see how and if Obama, who has promised an early and continuous focus on Middle East peace, will depart from the Bush administration's late-inning efforts, which, critics say, yielded only symbolic results.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00825.html
