(CNSNews.com) – President Obama on Tuesday told the protagonists in one of the most intractable conflicts of the last century to “disentangle” themselves from history and “take risks for peace.”
“It’s difficult to disentangle ourselves from history, but we must do so,” U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell quoted Obama as telling Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas. “The only reason to hold office is to get things done.”
The president summoned Israeli and P.A. leaders to a summit on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York to chide them on slow progress, but there was little sign afterward that either side was nearer agreement on the thorny issue of Israeli settlements.
Abbas has said he will not renew talks with Israel until it freezes all settlement construction in the disputed territories – the West Bank and Jerusalem; Netanyahu says Israel will not curtail “natural growth” within existing communities, and it also does not regard neighborhoods in Israel’s capital as settlements.
The prime minister told Israeli reporters after the summit that all sides, including the Palestinians, had agreed “to renew the negotiations without preconditions.”
But although some Israeli media interpreted this as meaning the Palestinians had dropped the settlement precondition, Abbas made not mention of this in a statement he issued afterwards, which said in part, “in today’s meetings … we also demanded that the Israeli side fulfill its commitments on settlements, including on natural growth.”
Although Mitchell, after a briefing, reported “very substantial progress,” Obama was not able after the summit to announce a re-launch of full-blown negotiations.
Instead, Obama said Mitchell would hold further talks with Israeli and P.A. officials next week, and that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would report back to him on those talks by the middle of October.
Earlier, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had played down the significance of the meeting, saying that there were “no grand expectations.”
Obama was due to address the General Assembly on Wednesday and Netanyahu on Thursday.