Israel to defend settlements at Obama summit

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will defend expanding Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank when he meets U.S. President Barack Obama and the Palestinian leader, his spokesman said on Monday.

"You have never heard the prime minister say he would freeze settlement building. The opposite is true," Nir Hefetz told Israel's Army Radio when asked about Tuesday's three-way summit during the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where differences over settlement building have limited expectations of a result.

"There are some politicians ... who see halting building or ceding national territory or harming the settlements in Judea and Samaria as an asset, something that can help Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu cannot be counted among those people."

Using Israel's term for the West Bank, he added: "He sees the settlements in Judea and Samaria as a Zionist enterprise and the settlers in Judea and Samaria as his -- our -- brothers."

Some 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and in Arab East Jerusalem, captured in a 1967 war, alongside three million Palestinians. The World Court calls the settlements illegal and Palestinians say the enclaves could deny them a viable state.

Israel signed up to a U.S.-backed peace plan in 2003, called the "road map". It required a halt to building in the Jewish settlements that Palestinians say are eating away at the viability of a future state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

You have never heard the prime minister say he would freeze settlement building. The opposite is true

Nir Hefetz, Israeli spokesman

Facing pressure

While Netanyahu has been under the heaviest U.S. pressure on Israel in years, he insists settlers should be allowed to continue building as their families grow and rules out any discussion on sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians.

Israeli officials have said Netanyahu last week offered Obama's envoy George Mitchell a 9-month freeze in building in the West Bank but Washington wanted a one-year freeze in order to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume peace negotiations that were suspended in December.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Obama's personal intervention was welcome.

"For the last eight months, the clear message from the international community has been that both sides need to meet their obligations" to create the environment for talks to resume, he said. "Palestinians strongly support this position."

Israel cannot "haggle its way out of" commitments, Erekat added in a statement. A settlement freeze was an Israeli obligation, he said, not a Palestinian precondition.

Netanyahu, facing strong opposition to any concessions on settlements from the coalition he forged in March, has avoided any public commitments to halting construction.

For the last eight months, the clear message from the international community has been that both sides need to meet their obligations" to create the environment for talks to resume

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat

Meeting just a "joke"

Tuesday's encounter with Abbas will be their first since Netanyahu took office. Officials on all sides play down the chance of it leading to a rapid re-launch of peace negotiations.

Speaking privately, Palestinian and Israeli officials have said the meeting may be little more than a photo opportunity for Obama, who has little so far to show for a pledge to work for peace in the Middle East's six-decade-old conflict.

Leading Israeli commentator Nahum Barnea, writing in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, called the meeting "a joke at the expense of the American president, who has chosen to get involved in Middle East politics and has suffered for it."

"Conditions are not ripe for a formal relaunch of negotiations," Israeli government secretary Zvi Herzog told army radio, calling Tuesday's meeting simply "a step in the right direction."

(Meeting is)a joke at the expense of the American president, who has chosen to get involved in Middle East politics and has suffered for it

Leading Israeli commentator Nahum Barnea

Not just a "courtesy call"

Hefetz said Netanyahu was not refusing to make the meeting more than a "courtesy call". He was "ready to go anywhere in the world at any time" to advance peace.

"On one thing the prime minister is not prepared to compromise, and on this he has been consistent throughout, that is the matter of Israel's security," the aide said.

On Sunday, a spokesman for Abbas said the meeting would not signal a full re-launch of peace talks, which remain blocked by profound disagreement over settlements and the scope of talks.

U.S. officials also played down the prospect of quick developments: "These three leaders are going to sit down in the same room and continue to narrow the gaps," one said.

However, neither side has shown any shift away from the deadlock that was evident on Friday when Obama's special envoy Mitchell completed a week shuttling around the region and left apparently empty-handed.

Obama's administration has been working towards a comprehensive peace package that would see Israel strike deals with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon, and Arab countries normalise relations with the Jewish state after more than 60 years of conflict.

Israelis and Palestinians resumed negotiations in November 2007 after a nearly seven-year hiatus, but the talks made little visible progress and were suspended in late December after Israel launched its war in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

On one thing the prime minister is not prepared to compromise, and on this he has been consistent throughout, that is the matter of Israel's security

Hefetz