On Tuesday afternoon, Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama, and afterwards Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas will join them. This will be the first time Netanyahu and Abbas are meeting.
Netanyahu is basking in the success of having brought about the three-way meeting without fulfilling PA-demanded preconditions of a freeze in Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria. The Obama Administration exerted pressure on Abbas to take part in the meeting even though no freeze has been announced.
A previous Israel-PA summit in the United States, in Annapolis two years ago, was held with the clear understanding that settlement construction would continue. So wrote then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert two months ago in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
Obama has pre-empted the meeting’s expected lack of significant results by having White House spokesman Robert Gibbs announce, “We have no grand expectations out of one meeting.” Gibbs said the mini-summit “would be an important way to continue the hard work and day-to-day diplomacy that has to be done to seek a lasting peace.”
It is not yet known whether the sides would issue a joint statement after the meeting or release their own versions separately.
Speaking at the UN
Netanyahu is to speak at the UN on Thursday, having written much of the speech on the plane to the U.S. A day earlier, Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmedinajad is to address the UN General Assembly. Jewish organizations will protest the speech outside the building.
Ahmedinajad has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and called for Israel’s destruction. At least two hotels in New York City refused to host him and his Iranian delegation.
Ministers Praise Netanyahu
Science and Technology Minister Dr. Rabbi Daniel Herskovitz, leader of the Jewish Home party, praised Netanyahu effusively for not giving in on the settlement issue. “Netanyahu has stood as a strong boulder against the American pressure,” Herskovitz told Arutz-7’s Hebrew newsmagazine. “It gives hope that he will be able to continue to do so in the future.”
Herskovitz noted that the pressure comes not only from the Americans, “but from the Euroepean countries as well, and the Arab nations, too. We must be alert to all developments.”
Minister Yuli Edelstein, of Netanyahu’s Likud party, also has warm words for Netanyahu: “Contrary to what the Americans demanded, there is no absolute freeze. Public construction continues, 2,500 apartments that are under construction also continues, and permits were granted for 455 more… It’s not enough, but it’s not a freeze.”
Edelstein acknowledges, however, that Obama might once again direct his pressure at Netanyahu during the upcoming meeting. “We must not delude ourselves that this will be a simple meeting," Edelstein said. "These things have a dynamic of their own… Let’s not forget that Obama is very interested in making his mark in the international arena.”