Leader of Israel backs Palestinian statehood

Palestinian leaders swiftly rejected the proposal because of its conditions.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed a Pal-estinian state beside Israel for the first time Sunday, reversing himself in the face of U.S. pressure but attaching conditions such as demilitarization that the Palestinians swiftly rejected.

A week after President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would have to be unarmed and recognize Israel as the Jewish state — a condition amounting to Palestinian refugees’ giving up the goal of returning to Israel.

With those conditions, he said, he could accept “a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.”

The West Bank-based Palestinian government dismissed the proposal as an attempt to determine the outcome of negotiations while maintaining Israeli settlements, refusing compromise over Jerusalem and ignoring the issue of borders. They also said that demilitarization would solidify Israeli control over them.

Netanyahu, in an address seen as his response to Obama, refused to heed the U.S. call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state. He also said the holy city of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.

“Netanyahu’s speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations,” senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said. “We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain.”

But in Washington, the White House said Obama welcomed the speech as an “important step forward.”

Netanyahu’s address had been eagerly anticipated in the wake of Obama’s landmark speech to the Muslim world.

His speech was a dramatic transformation for a man who was raised on a fiercely nationalistic ideology and has spent a two-decade political career criticizing peace efforts.

Many Israeli commentators speculated that after the re-election of Iran’s hardline president, Netanyahu would focus the address on the threat of Iran’s suspect nuclear program. While reiterating his belief that a nuclear-armed Iran is a grave threat, Netanyahu spent little time on the issue.

“I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority: Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions,” he said, calling on the wider Arab world to work with him. “Let’s make peace. I am willing to meet with you any time any place — in Damascus, Riyadh, Beirut and in Jerusalem.”