BICOM

Senior Israeli and American leaders addressed the Brookings Institute’s Saban Forum for Middle East Policy in Washington over the weekend, discussing issues including Iran’s nuclear programme and prospects for progress between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke via a satellite link and reiterated his commitment to a two-state solution.

He said: “I haven’t changed my vision for two states for two peoples, it’s the only way we’ll get to peace.”

Netanyahu also said: “I’m prepared to stop everything I’m doing right now” in order to enter talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA), “right away, no preconditions”.

He added: “The core of the conflict is the Palestinians’ refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state.”

Netanyahu went on to suggest that a regional approach may be the best way to advance peace.

The Prime Minister said that Israel remains committed “to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons” and “as far as President-elect Trump, I look forward to speaking to him about what to do about this bad deal”.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who spearheaded the last round of Israel-Palestinian peace talks, which ended in 2014, also addressed the Saban Forum yesterday, shortly after Netanyahu.

He said that Israel faces a “basic choice” between continued settlement construction and a two-state solution. Although he claimed settlements are not the reason for the conflict, Kerry emphasised he could not “accept the notion that they’re not a barrier to peace”.

Touching on Netanyahu’s suggestion of a move towards a regional peace, Kerry said: “There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace”.

Israel’s Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman spoke at the Saban Forum on Friday. He said that “disagreements with the American administration” over settlement building had been a significant problem over the past eight years.

He suggested that “the key to the future of the settlements is understandings with the United States,” and proposed to “create together with the new administration a common policy”.