JERUSALEM — European Union officials said Monday that they would delay any improvement in trade relations with Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered conditional support for a Palestinian state in an address Sunday night but did not declare a freeze on Israeli settlements.
The European leaders called Netanyahu’s endorsement of Palestinian statehood a positive development, but they urged him to take more concrete steps, such as imposing a freeze on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition lauded his speech, saying he had masterfully adapted to international pressure without compromising his core principles.
For the first time, Netanyahu offered to support a Palestinian state, but only if it is demilitarized and if Palestinians agree to a “public, binding and unequivocal” recognition that Israel is “the nation state of the Jewish people.”
On Monday, Arab commentators attacked those conditions. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Netanyahu’s speech “aborts” the peace process that President Barack Obama tried to reinvigorate with his address to Muslim nations on June 4 in Cairo.
