Lawmakers pressure Israeli PM on peace

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials and lawmakers pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday to make peace with the Palestinians and halt construction of Jewish settlements, echoing President Barack Obama’s blunt demands.

Winding up a three-day trip after talks with Obama, Netanyahu met with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and held sessions with House and Senate leaders and a group of Jewish legislators. He also met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters Tuesday that she reiterated the U.S. government’s commitment to a two-state solution and its demand that Israel halt construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

“Underlying that commitment is the conviction that the Palestinians deserve a viable state,” she said after her dinner with Netanyahu on Monday. “And therefore nothing should be done to undermine the potential resolution of the peace effort that could prevent such a two-state solution from taking hold.”

Obama told Netanyahu on Monday to stop expanding the settlements and grasp the “historic opportunity” to make peace with the Palestinians. Netanyahu has refused to agree to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state, a principle the U.S. endorses, and has announced plans to build within existing settlements.

After a meeting with the leader of the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, Netanyahu glossed over differences between his stance and Obama’s, saying that the U.S. and Israel were working together to resume Mideast peacemaking and “bring other elements in the Arab world into the process.”

Netanyahu said that the new thing emerging from his talks with Obama is that “not only Israel has to give but also the Palestinians and Arab countries, not at the end of the process but now. They have to take concrete steps to improve relations with Israel and to begin to set into motion reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world.”