JERUSALEM — In a challenge to President Barack Obama’s commitment to rejuvenate Mideast peace talks, Israel on Thursday dismissed U.S.-led efforts to establish a Palestinian state and laid out new conditions for renewed negotiations.
Leaders of Israel’s hawkish new government told former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, the special U.S. envoy, that they won’t rush into peace talks with their Palestinian neighbors. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would require Palestinians to accept Israel as a Jewish state in any future negotiations — a demand Palestinians have up to now rejected, Israeli government officials said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Obama’s envoy that past Israeli concessions led to war, not peace.
These were Mitchell’s first meetings with Israeli leaders since Netanyahu’s center-right government took power two weeks ago. Palestinian leaders have said they won’t open peace talks with Netanyahu’s government until it agrees in principle to the idea of a two-state solution and imposes a freeze on building Jewish housing in the West Bank.
Mitchell made it clear that the Obama administration sees the two-state solution as the foundation for future talks. “U.S. policy favors . . . a Palestinian state living in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel,” he said before meeting with Lieberman.
Netanyahu has instead floated the idea of offering Palestinians limited rights that would fall short of independence. He reiterated his stand in his meeting with Mitchell, said one Israeli government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the details of the conversation.
Netanyahu also indicated that Palestinians would have to accept Israel as a Jewish state in negotiations. “For us, this is a crucial element,” the official said. “It’s a fundamental element in peace talks.”
