U.S. envoy says ties with Israel ‘unshakable’

JERUSALEM —  Seeking to calm a public spat with Israel, U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell assured its leaders Tuesday that American support for the Jewish state was “unshakable.” But he said the Obama administration stood by a goal the new Israeli government has yet to embrace: an independent Palestinian state.

Mitchell is visiting Israel and the West Bank to build on President Obama’s commitment, spelled out last week in an address to the Muslim world, to work aggressively to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mitchell will go this week to Lebanon and Syria, his first visit to those countries as special Middle East envoy, to try to win Arab support for the initiative and to encourage peace talks between Syria and Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been sharply at odds with the Obama administration recently over its insistence on halting Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank. U.S. officials have made it clear that they expect a settlement freeze, which Netanyahu rejects, as the first step toward reviving talks with the Palestinians.

The sparring over the issue has burst into the open as Obama, after years in which Washington sided consistently with Israel, tries to reposition the U.S. as an honest broker in the eyes of Palestinians and other Arabs. In recent days, however, U.S. officials have sounded worried that they might be losing the Israelis’ trust.

Israeli newspapers have been full of reports quoting unnamed aides to the prime minister as saying the American pressure is aimed at bringing down his right-leaning coalition government. Returning from Washington last week, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told aides that administration officials, concerned about the reports, assured him there was no such plot.

Obama spoke to Netanyahu by phone Monday night. According to the White House, the president repeated points made in his address last week, “including his commitment to Israel’s security.” Mitchell emphasized the U.S.-Israeli bond to reporters Tuesday.

“We come here to talk not as adversaries and in disagreement, but as friends in discussion,” he said, standing at Netanyahu’s side before an evening meeting that lasted four hours.

There was no official comment by either side on the substance of the talks.

U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority have been suspended since January. Netanyahu, who took office March 31, has offered to revive them. But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says there is no point in talking as long as Netanyahu refuses to discuss the goal of Palestinian independence.

Nabil abu Rudaineh, an aide to Abbas, said the Palestinian leader would press Mitchell when they meet today not only to get the talks going again but to set a deadline for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Mitchell said he was trying to “create the conditions for the prompt resumption and early conclusion of negotiations.” The goal, he said, is “a comprehensive peace in the Middle East . . . including a Palestinian state, side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel.”

The description of Israel as a Jewish state was apparently aimed at reassuring Netanyahu. He has insisted that the Palestinians must recognize Israel’s Jewish character and, in doing so, drop demands that Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants be allowed to return there.

Netanyahu has scheduled a major address Sunday to outline his peace proposals. He is under conflicting pressure within his coalition on the issue of Palestinian statehood.

Members of his conservative Likud Party said the prime minister had promised to consult them before writing his speech. “We’re going to demand that he not say ‘two states’ and that he not speak in terms of a Palestinian state,” said Danny Danon, a Likud member of parliament.

Barak, whose Labor Party is the only left-leaning component of the government, told Israel Radio that Israel “must welcome President Obama’s vision” and “commit to the objective of two states for two peoples.” Such a shift, he said, would ease the U.S.-Israeli conflict over Jewish settlements, perhaps facilitating a compromise solution limiting but not halting their growth.

Israeli President Shimon Peres said after meeting with Mitchell that Obama’s address “created a change in the Middle East” that gave him “a feeling of elation” over the possibilities for peace.

“I think we have to take the bull by the horns,” he said, and pursue “a state for us and a state for the Palestinians.”

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boudreaux@latimes.com