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"YOU’RE not going to like my saying this," said Joseph Biden, America’s vice-president, addressing members of AIPAC, a powerful pro-Israel lobby group, at its convention in Washington, DC, on Tuesday May 5th. Mr Biden was probably right. He went on to ask of Israel that it should "not build more settlements, dismantle existing outposts and allow Palestinians freedom of movement…and access to economic opportunity."
The audience presumably liked it a bit better when the vice-president stressed that the Palestinian Authority “must combat terror and incitement against Israel.” He went on to reassure his audience that "With all the change you will hear about, there is one enduring, essential principle that will not change, and that is our commitment to the peace and security of the state of Israel."
Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, also seemed prepared for some change. On Monday he told the convention by video-link from Israel that he was "prepared to resume peace negotiations [with the Palestinians] without any delay and without any preconditions—the sooner the better." He said he was proposing "a fresh approach…a triple track towards peace between Israel and the Palestinians—a political track, a security track, an economic track."
The Obama administration and the Netanyahu government, both relatively new in office, have been batting carefully nuanced statements at each other in advance of an important first meeting between the two leaders in Washington later this month. Officials and commentators in both countries are meticulously parsing the volleys of words to see if they portend conflict or accommodation between the Jewish state and its superpower patron.
The American statements, Mr Biden's among them, reiterate America's commitment to the “two-state” solution between Israelis and Palestinians. The Israeli pronouncements, including Mr Netanyahu's to AIPAC, stop short of that formula, even though it was the bedrock of the previous Israeli government's policy towards the Palestinians.
Both sides focus on Iran's nuclear ambitions and stress the dangers they pose to Israel and to other regional powers, especially key American allies, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey. A linkage between the two issues, Palestine and Iran, is becoming common currency in diplomacy in the Middle East. But some observers discern potential discord between America and Israel over the order of the two linked issues. Is it to be progress on Palestine that will help American diplomatic efforts to end Iran’s quest for a nuclear bomb? Or will American success in blunting the Iranian threat facilitate Israeli concessions towards the Palestinians?
A forthright presentation of American thinking came from Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s chief of staff. He reportedly said that America’s ability to stand up to Iran depended on its ability to achieve progress on the Palestinian front. Mr Emanuel spoke on Sunday to a closed meeting of some 300 top AIPAC contributors and officials. In a separate meeting with American Jewish leaders last month Mr Emanuel was reported to have said that the administration was determined to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians based on the two-state solution during its first term, regardless of who was prime minister in Jerusalem.
Mr Obama’s national security adviser, General James Jones, is said to have told an EU foreign minister recently that the administration would be "more forceful toward Israel than we have been under [George] Bush.” General Jones also said, according to a diplomatic report leaked in the Israeli press, that "The new administration will convince Israel to compromise on the Palestine question. We will not push Israel under the wheels of a bus."
On the other side, Israel’s new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, suggested in Rome on Monday that America and its allies have set a three-month deadline in the effort to open up a dialogue with Teheran. If after three months there are no results, he said, "practical steps" should be taken. In a more placatory vein, Israel's president, Shimon Peres, sought to assure Mr Obama that Mr Netanyahu wanted to make his mark in history as a peacemaker. In a departure from the largely ceremonial role of president, the elder statesman of Israeli politics is trying to smooth possible friction between the two governments. "Netanyahu says he doesn't want to rule over the Palestinians," he pointed out to reporters in Washington. The Economist
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