Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to negotiate a deal with Washington under which Israeli building in existing Jewish settlements can go forward in certain cases, Israeli and Western officials said on Tuesday. Under pressure from US President Barack Obama, Netanyahu this week publicly accepted for the first time the internationally backed goal of Palestinian statehood, but set a series of pre-conditions that were rejected by the Palestinians.
Netanyahu has refused to accept Obama's direct call for a full settlement freeze in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, defending building in existing blocs to accommodate growing Jewish settler families, known-called "natural growth". Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded a halt to all building, including natural growth, as a condition for resuming stalled peace negotiations with Israel.
Western officials said Netanyahu's advisers have told their American and European counterparts that the Israeli government lacks legal authority to stop building in cases in which construction tenders have already been awarded or newly-built homes have already been purchased.
US officials in the region had no immediate comment but a senior Western official said some in Washington were "sympathetic" to Netanyahu's position. A full settlement freeze could break up the prime minister's right-leaning coalition. "I think there is understanding in the United States and in Europe concerning our basic demand to allow at least natural growth," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Radio during a visit to Europe.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in a telephone conversation with Netanyahu on Monday, made clear that Britain would accept no building, calling for a "complete freeze" in line with a 2003 US-backed peace "road map", Brown's spokesman said. Israeli officials say Netanyahu hopes his highly conditional acceptance of Palestinian statehood, made in a major policy address earlier this week, will persuade Obama to show more flexibility on the issue of settlements.
In an interview with US television, Netanyahu said he would meet with Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell during a visit to Europe next week to discuss settlements, acknowledging that it remained an "issue of contention". "And I hope that ... my government and the Obama administration can find a common position on this because we'd like to move the peace process forward," Netanyahu said.
A senior Western diplomat said Washington's focus was shifting somewhat, from the highly contentious settlement issue to ways to restart the negotiations. One option under consideration by the Obama administration would be to expedite Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over the borders of a future Palestinian state, the diplomat said. If a deal were to be reached on borders, construction could continue in those areas which would remain under Israeli control. Israel wants to keep major settlement blocs.