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WASHINGTON: Reaching peace in the Middle East is more urgent than ever as pro-democracy uprisings rock the Arab world, President Barack Obama said Tuesday after meeting his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres.
“We had an extensive discussion about what has happened in the Middle East,” Obama told reporters, adding that the two leaders shared the belief that this was a moment of “challenge and opportunity.”
“With the winds of change blowing through the Arab world, it is more important than ever to create a peaceful solution between the Palestinians and the Israelis,” Obama said.
The US leader added that Peres “had interesting ideas around those issues” but did not elaborate, saying only that it was important to ensure economic opportunity as well as nurture democracy in countries such as Egypt.
Peres, a veteran statesman and Nobel laureate, “has been a friend and partner with the United States for many administrations,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters ahead of the meeting.
Obama has often had rocky relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a right-leaning leader and former political foe of Peres, over US efforts to encourage a permanent peace deal with the Palestinians.
Moves by the Obama administration to forge a peace deal, which has eluded successive leaders for decades, have been stymied by many issues, including continued Israeli settlement building.
On the eve of the talks between Peres and Obama, the Jerusalem city council approved the construction of 942 new homes in Gilo, a settlement neighborhood in the city's mostly Arab eastern sector, officials said.
In March 2010, during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden, the interior ministry announced a plan to build 1,600 settler homes in an Orthodox Jewish part of east Jerusalem in what some saw as a slap in the face to Obama's efforts.
