Israel cannot exist without US: Shimon Peres

Israeli President Shimon Peres declared that Israel cannot survive without the help of the United States, in a Jerusalem conference of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute late on Thursday, according to Israeli media.

"For our existence, we need the friendship of the United States of America," President Peres said as quoted by The Jerusalem Post.

He also urged to maintain a reciprocal relation with the United States by returning the favor of unconditional American support.

“As the U.S. is trying to understand the security needs of Israel, we Israelis ourselves must understand the security need of the U.S.,” Peres said. "We cannot give back to the United States what the U.S. is giving us, but in our own small way, we can be of help."

What Israel can give back

Peres added that Israel can help the United States by encouraging an “anti-Iran coalition in the Middle East and putting and en of what he called the “secondary” conflict with the Palestinians, to allow the United States to focus on the Iranian threat.

Peres also expressed his appreciation for former U.S. President George W. Bush for his “attempt to expose them [Arab States] to democracy.” But he questioned whether democracy in the Arab world was possible, saying it is “very difficult to come to a king and tell him to go to elections.”

With stalled peace talks, Israelis and Palestinians are quietly - and separately -looking for alternatives.

Palestinians could go around Israel to seek world recognition for an independent state, while Israel could push for a scaled-down agreement that sidesteps the toughest issues, like sharing Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

Peace prospects

The thinking is that few people believe a full peace deal within a year is achievable. And the impasse that has emerged over settlement construction has brought a difficult question to the surface: If the United States cannot compel Israel to extend a settlement freeze for a few months, how can the U.S. persuade Israel to make wrenching decisions over control of Jerusalem?

Both sides claim their first choice is still a full agreement, and the Obama administration is clinging to the hope that the peace talks will succeed.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged in a speech to Palestinian Americans that it's a struggle.

"I cannot stand here tonight and tell you there is some magic formula that I have discovered that will break through the current impasse," she said.

Palestinians say the current situation cannot drag on indefinitely: they have a measure of self-rule in the main cities of the West Bank, but Israel controls the land in between and remains ultimately in charge, controlling the Palestinians through a complex permit system. The Gaza Strip, meanwhile, has essentially broken off - an isolated statelet run by the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rejects the peace talks.

Palestinian officials said they don't expect Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to take drastic action before the year set aside for negotiations is up in September 2011. However, Abbas is starting to prepare for other options, and on Wednesday, more than a dozen senior Palestinian officials met for the first time - at the president's request - to discuss ideas.

The main alternative, according to officials, is to seek U.N. Security Council recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

"The U.N. is a possible option because this political battle ... needs to be transferred to the broader courtyard," said Yasser Abed-Rabbo, a top official of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Meanwhile, Israel would surely oppose such a unilateral Palestinian move.

But among many Israelis as well, skepticism about peace talks is accompanied by a gnawing sense that something must change: the occupation is ruining the country's reputation and there's concern that without a decisive break from the West Bank, Israel will become, in effect, a binational state with a dwindling Jewish majority.