WASHINGTON — Hoping for a breakthrough, President Barack Obama will try to accelerate the prospects of face-to-face peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians when he meets Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, White House officials said Friday.
Obama's latest personal venture into the vexing Mideast peace process comes as his special envoy, George Mitchell, has shuttled for weeks between the two sides in search of common ground. The White House hopes to pivot from these so-called proximity talks to direct negotiations between the parties, and soon.
"The gaps have narrowed," said Daniel Shapiro, senior Middle East director at the National Security Council, told reporters on Friday. "And we believe there are opportunities to further narrow those gaps, to allow the sides to take that next step to the direct talks. And so we're encouraged."
The White House is billing that effort as the primary thrust of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting, one that will also cover efforts to halt Iran's pursuit of nuclear weaponry, conflict on the Gaza Strip and other regional security challenges. The session will be the fifth between the two leaders, and will be watched closely.
This was the Netanyahu visit that was supposed to happen on June 1, but that sit-down got scuttled after Israel's deadly raid on May 31 on a flotilla aiming to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza. The raid caused an international uproar, injecting new tension into Israel's relations with the U.S. and other allies.
Such setbacks have defined the back-and-forth Mideast peace effort for years.
Yet in previewing the Netanyahu visit, White House national security officials sought to emphasize that US-Israeli cooperation is strong and that momentum is building. "In no way do we perceive a rift," Shapiro said when asked about the view that the relationship had weakened under Obama.
Netanyahu has called for direct talks with Palestinians to begin again. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Israeli reporters this week that the borders of a future Palestinian state and security relations with Israel are the two issues on the table, and that if an agreement on them is reached, direct talks can resume.
Obama, meanwhile, has committed to "spend a lot of time and energy and political capital" on keeping the two sides moving toward a breakthrough as he told Abbas in their own Oval Office meeting on June 9. He has called on Israelis to curb disputed settlement activity and to recognize progress on security on the part of the Palestinians. Obama says Palestinians must show more gains in security and must end incitement against Israel.