Clinton presses Israel to make concessions for peace at AIPAC

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to dispel rising tension with Israel today in a speech that underscored the deep US commitment to Israel's security while at the same time warning that the on-going occupation of Palestinian territory is “unsustainable on all sides” and costly to the US image abroad.

“We cannot be blind to the political implications of continued conflict,” she told an audience of some 7,500 delegates to the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobby.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also underscored the unbreakable friendship between the two nations, but remained unwilling to budget on the key issue -- Jewish construction in East Jerusalem -- that had caused the worst diplomat spat between them in more than 10 years.

Netanyahu, who will speak to the AIPAC dinner tonight, is slated to meet Obama tomorrow.

The crowed greeted Clinton warmly, giving her several standing ovations, as she addressed the audience as an old friend, calling AIPAC's incoming president Lee Rosenberg by a nickname “Rosy” and making a light-hearted reference to her daughter's upcoming marriage to a Jewish-American.

But she also spelled out clearly why the Obama administration is pushing Israel - as well as the Palestinians and the Arab states -- to make concessions for peace. She twice mentioned that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict undermines US interests in the region by strengthening Islamic extremists and weakening moderates. She said world leaders, even from countries far from the Middle East, constantly bring up the issue.

Clinton did not reiterate - but also did not apologize for - the tough rhetoric that she launched at Israel in recent weeks after Israeli officials announced that they would build 1,600 new housing units in an ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, an area that Palestinians hope will become the capital of their future state, but which Israelis insist is now a part of Israel. The international community rejects Israel's claim to that territory, which Israel annexed after the 1967 war.

The announcement of the new units came during Vice President Joseph Biden's visit to Israel and just after Palestinians agreed to return to indirect peace talks, also known as proximity talks. Clinton called the announcement “insulting” in a diplomatic back-and-forth that marked most public dispute with Israel in more than a decade.

Today, her tone was far softer, explaining why the Obama administration believes that restarting peace talks is more important than pressing ahead with new buildings that threaten to derail the talks.

“New construction in East Jerusalem or the West Bank undermines that mutual trust and endangers the proximity talks that are the first step toward the full negotiations that both sides say want and need,” she said. “Our credibility in this process depends in part on our willingness to praise both sides when they are courageous, and when we don’t agree, to say so, and say so unequivocally.”

In an interview last week, the Palestinian Liberation Organization's ambassador to Washington, Maen Rashid Areikat, said Palestinian leaders are reluctant to return to peace talks when Israel builds on land that is a key focus of negotiations.

“Some people are saying 'What is the big deal about expanding infrastructure?'“ he said. “The big deal is that they are swallowing our land.”

But Netanyahu was expected to dispute this notion in his speech at the AIPAC dinner tonight. Netanyahu has apologized for the timing of the announcement, but not for the continued development of East Jerusalem.

It was clear that much of the audience yesterday sided with Netanyahu's view of construction in East Jerusalem. Moments before Clinton spoke, the audience jumped to its feet clapping when AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr declared: “Jerusalem is not a settlement.”

Kohr's speech about Israel's future made only a cursory mention of millions of Palestinians who live in Israeli-occupied territories, focusing instead focused on how the US government must help Israel achieve international recognition that have so far eluded the Jewish state.

Kohr said Washington must help Israel secure membership to the Organization for Economical Co-operation and Development, a club of democratic economies, and a seat on the a seat on the UN Security Council.

But in her speech, Clinton said it was the creation of a Palestinian state that would give Israelis “the recognition they deserve.”

Farah Stockman can be reached at fstockman@globe.com.