Netanyahu, Clinton discuss efforts to rescue Mideast peace talks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met for two hours in New York on Thursday as Israeli officials sought to develop their own proposal to rescue faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

As they tried to resuscitate a round of Mideast negotiations that has been on the edge of collapse for weeks, Netanyahu and Clinton also discussed this week’s U.S.- Israel clash over Jewish construction in disputed East Jerusalem.

The new Mideast talks officially began Sept. 1 but were suspended at the end of the month when Palestinians refused to continue unless Israel extended a moratorium on housing construction in the West Bank.

Israel wants to develop its own proposal to try to bring the Palestinians back to the table. The Netanyahu government will unveil the proposal within the next few weeks, according to a diplomat close to the negotiations. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

Before the meeting, Netanyahu told reporters at a Manhattan hotel that he and Clinton would be talking “about how to resume and continue this process to get a historic agreement with peace and security between us and the Palestinians.”

Netanyahu said his government wants to broaden the peace agreement to take in “many other Arab countries.... We are quite serious about doing it, and we want to get on with it.”

It remains unclear whether the Israelis will yield to U.S. pressure to extend a freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank or whether they will try to use other incentives to bring Palestinian leaders back to negotiations, officials said.

Clinton, who in recent weeks has been focused on saving the talks, said Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are both “very committed” to resolving the conflict by creating a Palestinian state, and she offered reassurances that Israel’s security concerns would be “fully taken into account” in any peace deal.

But Clinton also had said she and Netanyahu would discuss U.S. unhappiness with the announcement this week that Israel would build 1,300 units in East Jerusalem, which is claimed by Israel and the Palestinians.

Obama complained during his Asia trip this week that the new construction announcement could harm the peace effort because the Palestinians view it as the development of land whose ownership should be decided in final peace negotiations. Netanyahu responded that the land is Israeli territory.

Clinton and Netanyahu first met one on one, then with a larger group of negotiators in an effort to work on a proposal before issuing a statement that they had “a friendly and productive exchange of views on both sides.”

paul.richter@latimes.com