NEW YORK - US President Barack Obama told Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas on Wednesday that UN action would not achieve a Palestinian state
and the United States would veto any Security Council move to recognize
Palestinian statehood, the White House said.
"We would have to
oppose any action at the UN Security Council including, if necessary,
vetoing," Ben Rhodes, the White House national security council
spokesman, told reporters after Obama met Abbas in New York.
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Watch live: Debate begins at the UN General AssemblyAnalysis: Explaining as national strategyAt the same time, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday evening before a meeting with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in New York that negotiations with the Palestinians are needed in order to reach a peace agreement.
When asked about the settlements in a joint press conference, Netanyahu said "I did something that no previous Israeli government did. I actually froze any construction for ten months, waited nine months and one week." He went on to say that "the Palestinians finally came and said, well, keep on freezing."
The prime minister said that Israel concluded with the United States that the real issues must be addressed in order to get peace. "We have to negotiate the issues to resolve them. We can’t just negotiate about the negotiations," he added.
Earlier on Wednesday, Obama told the UN General Assembly that there could be “no shortcuts” to peace between the
Israelis and Palestinians, and that negotiations between the two parties
would be the only means to achieving a true and lasting peace.
In
his 20-minute speech before the international body, Obama devoted
significant time to discussing the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
Obama
alluded to his remarks before the General Assembly in 2010. In that
speech, he had expressed his hope that there would be a Palestinian
state requesting membership in 2011 – remarks that could be seen as
prescient in light of Abbas’s plans to petition the Security Council to
recognize Palestine as a state.
However, Obama distinguished between what he had said last year and the situation before the international body today.
“One
year ago, I stood at this podium and called for an independent
Palestine,” the US president said. “I believed then – and I believe now –
that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own. But what I
also said is that genuine peace can only be realized between Israelis
and Palestinians themselves.”
Noting that one year later,
Israelis and Palestinians “have not bridged their differences,” Obama
iterated the American position – albeit implicitly rather than
explicitly referencing Abbas – that peace can only be achieved through
bilateral negotiations.
“Peace
will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN – if it were
that easy, it would have been accomplished by now,” Obama said.
“Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians who must live side by side.
Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians – not us – who must reach
agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and security; on
refugees and Jerusalem.”
Peace, he said, “depends upon compromise
among peoples who must live together long after our speeches are over,
and our votes have been counted.”
The president cited Northern
Ireland and southern Sudan as examples of people who put aside their
differences in the name of compromise and a livable peace: “That is the
path to a Palestinian state.”
While emphasizing his support for
an independent Palestinian state, Obama did so comparatively briefly. He
characterized America’s commitment to Israel’s security as
“unshakeable,” highlighting instances of attacks on Israel and
referencing the Holocaust.
“America’s commitment to Israel’s
security is unshakeable, and our friendship with Israel is deep and
enduring,” Obama said. “And so we believe that any lasting peace must
acknowledge the very real security concerns that Israel faces every
single day.
“Let’s be honest: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it.
Israel’s
citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide
bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that
throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them,” the
president said. “Israel, a small country of less than eight million
people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations
threaten to wipe it off of the map.
“The Jewish people carry the
burden of centuries of exile, persecution, and the fresh memory of
knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they
were,” the president said.