Washington, April 16: The United States called Thursday on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prove his commitment to a Palestinian state, warning that prolonged conflict only strengthened extremists.
Amid US tensions with Netanyahu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged “bold leadership” from all sides to resolve one of the world’s most intractable disputes and also pressed Arab states to show they wanted to make peace.
Speaking at a dinner attended by the ambassadors of Israel and several Arab states, Clinton was forthright in her demands of Netanyahu, urging Israel to “refrain from unilateral statements and actions” that could undermine peace.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has embraced the vision of the two-state solution,” Clinton said.
“But easing up on access and movement in the West Bank, in response to credible Palestinian security performance, is not sufficient to prove to the Palestinians that this embrace is sincere,” she said.
“We encourage Israel to continue building momentum toward a comprehensive peace by demonstrating respect for the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians, stopping settlement activity and addressing the humanitarian needs in Gaza.”
Clinton warned that the long freeze in the peace process was strengthening hardliners, including Iran’s firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Praising efforts by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas to tackle violence, corruption and economic woes, Clinton said she feared his constituents would look to the Islamist movement Hamas if he is unable to show achievements.
“What I worry about is that the failure to act now when there are changed circumstances… will not just set us back but may irreversibly prevent us from going forward,” she said.
Clinton was speaking at the dedication of a Center for Middle East Peace named after US entrepreneur Danny Abraham, a longtime advocate for Israeli peace efforts who created the Slim-Fast dieting drink.
President Barack Obama’s administration has vowed to remain steadfast in US support for Israel but has also pushed to resolve the Middle East conflict, saying it was a vital interest for the United States.
Clinton said that when she was first lady in the 1990s, the Middle East was rarely a top issue on travels to far-flung parts of the world.
“Now it is the first, second or third item on nearly every agenda of every country I visit,” she said.
On a visit to Israel last month, Vice President Joe Biden was said to have argued that Middle East peace would help improve the safety of the tens of thousands of US troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Biden’s trip turned into a fiasco when Israeli officials announced plans to build 1,600 Jewish settlements in annexed east Jerusalem while he was still on the visit. Clinton later called the Israeli move “insulting.”
The Obama administration has come under harsh attack by some of Israel’s US supporters, who say that the United States is putting the Jewish state at risk.
Representative Eric Cantor, the number two Republican in the House, said the White House “has applied a severe double standard that refuses to hold the Palestinians accountable for their many provocations.”
“It makes one wonder where the responsible adults are in the administration,” said Cantor, the only Jewish House member from the minority party.
Cantor accused the Obama administration of “manufacturing fights with Israel to ingratiate itself with some in the Arab world.”
“By confusing the firefighter with the arsonist we only dilute our moral standing on the world stage,” Cantor said.
Clinton in her speech also pressed the Arab world, calling on the Palestinian Authority to increase efforts against anti-Israeli “incitement and violence” and for Arab leaders to do more to reconcile with Israel.
She called for “action, not just rhetoric” on the so-called Arab Peace Initiative in which Arab states agreed in general terms to normalize ties with Israel in return for its withdrawal from Palestinian lands.
“If the Arab Peace Initiative is indeed the genuine offer it appears to be, we should not face threats by certain Arab states that it will be ‘taken off the table’ each time there is a setback,” Clinton said.
—Agencies