Middle East Peace

Middle Eastern leaders have listened to President Obama say that he intends to achieve the peace deal that has eluded so many of his predecessors. Now they're about to find out just how hard he'll push to get it. Obama today holds his first White House meeting with Israel's new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a conservative who has pointedly stopped short of accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, which is the goal of the president and most other world leaders.

President Obama declared Friday that "the moment is now" to settle 60 years of conflict in the Middle East as he sought to stoke momentum for negotiations a day after his address in Cairo that both inspired hopes and rattled nerves across the region. Obama announced that he was sending George J. Mitchell, his special Mideast envoy, on a mission to the area beginning Sunday. One of Mitchell's stops could be in Syria, which would mark a significant step in the U.S.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Monday that Palestinians can make a stronger case for ending Israel's occupation by building up self-governing institutions that would strengthen global support for a Palestinian state. He set a goal of establishing an independent state within two years. "I call upon our people to unite around the project of establishing a state and to strengthening its institutions . . .

A private meeting Monday held to ease tensions between the White House and American Jewish leaders included a pointed exchange as President Obama said public disagreements between the U.S. government and Israel are useful in the pursuit of Middle East peace, several participants said.

President Obama said Tuesday that the Middle East peace process was in a "rut," and prodded Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to help break an Arab-Israeli standoff that has frustrated the administration's effort to restart talks. "If all sides are willing to move off of the rut that we're in currently, then I think there is an extraordinary opportunity to make real progress," Obama said in a joint appearance with Mubarak at the White House. "But we're not there yet." Obama's comments came at the conclusion of Mubarak's first visit to the White House in more than five years, a meeting that was conceived months ago as part of an ambitious diplomatic push but ended up underscoring the intractability of the issue.

With a green light to build 455 homes for settlers in the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have contained unrest among his right-wing supporters over a likely deal with the Obama administration to limit the growth of Jewish communities on land claimed by the Palestinians. The Defense Ministry announced the construction permits Monday, ignoring White House objections voiced Friday after Israel's intentions were first disclosed. Israeli officials insisted that the new housing units, along with 2,500 already under construction, will be exempt from any suspension of settlement growth, even though discussions with U.S. special envoy George J. Mitchell over the issue are still in the final stages.

Palestinian and Israeli leaders have agreed to meet with President Obama on Tuesday in New York, a three-way encounter the administration has been trying for weeks to broker, the White House announced Saturday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Obama on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. Each will also meet one-on-one with Obama.

Hounded by his moderate supporters and militant rivals alike, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is facing a leadership crisis that will make it harder for the Obama administration to draw him into peace talks with Israel. For months, Abbas enjoyed broad Palestinian support for his refusal to meet with the Israelis unless they stopped expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Then he made two concessions that ignited fury at home and across the Arab world: First he joined President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a meeting in New York last month to explore prospects for formal talks.

In a vote likely to complicate U.S. efforts to revive Middle East peace talks, the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday endorsed a report calling on Israel and Hamas to conduct credible investigations of alleged war crimes by their forces or face further international inquiries and possible prosecutions. The action in Geneva by the 47-nation council was a sharp setback for Israel, which had labored to discredit the month-old U.N. report. The council's vote could force Israel to defend itself for months or perhaps years -- in diplomatic forums, if not criminal tribunals -- as U.N. bodies grapple with highly charged fallout from last winter's conflict in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Embarrassed by what it called "a disgraceful disciplinary aberration," the Israeli military announced Friday that it would punish soldiers who staged a pro-settler demonstration during their swearing-in ceremony at Jerusalem's Western Wall. Thursday's protest reflected fears by right-wing nationalists that the conservative-led government would eventually yield to U.S. pressure to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and evict Jewish settlers from the West Bank. The young soldiers, who were being sworn in to an elite infantry unit, the Kfir Brigade, held up banners declaring their refusal to obey orders to enforce any such decision.