Obama, Netanyahu to meet at White House following president’s challenge to Israel on peace

President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were sharply at odds over terms for Middle East peace ahead of a highly anticipated Oval Office meeting Friday.

In a speech Thursday on U.S. policy in the Mideast, Obama for the first time endorsed the Palestinians’ demand that their eventual state be based on borders that existed before the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel forces occupied east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

From Jerusalem, Netanyahu dismissed the position as “indefensible,” saying it would leave major Jewish settlements outside Israel. Then he boarded a plane for his long-scheduled visit to Washington, vowing to seek clarifications in his meeting with Obama at the White House.

The encounter will pit a president deeply frustrated with a peace effort in shambles against an Israeli leader confronted by a Palestinian government he says he cannot do business with. International pressure is growing on both to answer the demands of the Palestinian people as the revolts sweeping the Arab world crest against Israel itself. Palestinian protesters emboldened by the winds of change marched on the Jewish state’s borders this week and at least 15 people were killed.

Against that backdrop, Obama is aiming “to try to convince Netanyahu and the Israelis that there’s a greater urgency in reaching agreement with the Palestinians because of the dramatic changes under way in the region and greater diplomatic pressures and efforts to isolate Israel and delegitimize its existence,” said Haim Malka, deputy director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“So he was speaking to both the Israelis and the Palestinians and trying to urge them to move forward and conveying a sense of urgency and risk in the status quo,” Malka said.

Obama’s stance on the 1967 borders was not a major policy change, since the U.S — along with the international community and even past Israeli governments — previously endorsed an agreement building on the 1967 lines.