WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama tries to allay some of America's largest supporters of Israel after he joined the Jewish nation 1967 borders as the basis for a Palestinian State and clashed with isrælske prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a speech Sunday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama was not expected to sketch out another significant U.S. policy shift but probably will focus on the deep U.S.-isrælske alliance.
But almost everyone in the room wanted to see how the Chairman addresses his remarks from Thursday, when he said that a future Palestine should be designed around the border lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and in East Jerusalem, with land swaps to take account of isrælske settlements and other changing conditions.
Obama endorsement moved U.S. position from noting the Palestinian goal of a country based on these terms and leaves the result to be settled through negotiation. By eliminating the hue, he stated, mainly what almost every Observer assumed would be the border lines of a two-State solution with mutually agreed adjustments.
Still, the change prompted bitter criticism from Netanyahu. And in a blunt display of differences between the two leaders disagree openly after a Friday meeting at the White House. Netanyahu called the 1967 demarcation "indefensible" and issued a flat rejection of the idea.
"It will not happen," he said. "Everyone knows that it will not happen."
Netanyahu, who will address the calm lobby Congress on Monday and Tuesday played down the rift.
"The differences have been blown out of proportion," he told The Associated Press on Saturday. "It is true we have some differences, but these are among friends".
Obama was to depart later Sunday for a weeklong European tour seeking tendency to old friends in the Western alliance and ensure their help with the political upheavals throughout the Arab world and the ten-year long conflict in Afghanistan.
Obama will visit Ireland, England, France and Poland.
The trip comes in the midst of the ongoing NATO-led bombing campaign in Libya and a seemingly intractable conflict between Moammar Gadhafi's forces and Libyan rebels. The negotiations will also include economic concerns, as European countries makes sharp cuts in public spending and Obama and Congressional Republicans try to hash out how to cut spending to bring U.S. debt under control.
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Associated Press Writer Amy Teibel contributed to this report.
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