Obama threatens world summit to impose solution on Israel

U.S. President Barack Obama has told European leaders that if Israeli-Palestinian talks remain stalemated into September or October, he will convene an international summit to impose a Mideast solution that will produce a Palestinian state, senior Israeli officials told Haaretz on Thursday.

The officials said the conference would be run by the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - in a move to form a united global front to impose creation of a Palestinian state on Israel. The summit, they said, would decide on such core issues as borders, security arrangements, Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.

It appears the EU is inclined to support any peace plan proposed by Washington. With Obama already readying for the possibility that indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks might reach a dead end, the Palestinians will have every incentive to make them fail.

The U.S. proposal would likely be presented by the end of this year, the officials said.

On Saturday night, Arab League foreign ministers will convene to reiterate their support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to begin U.S.-mediated talks and will reported impose a deadline of four months for the talks to bear fruit. Thus September and October dovetails with the Obama threat, suggesting that the process has been coordinated with the Arab League.

The UN General Assembly will reconvene in late September, and that month will also mark one year since Obama hosted a largely unproductive trilateral summit with Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In addition, September 26 marks the end of the 10-month period Israel allocated for a freeze on West Bank settlement construction, and Netanyahu will have to decide whether to allow such building to be resumed. There are reports that Netanyahu's government has already been pressured to extend that deadline.

Israeli officials said they believe Obama might postpone the international summit, or the unveiling of his own peace plan, until after the midterm Congressional elections in November, in which his Democratic Party is widely expected to suffer heavy losses. Ganging up on Israel for a globally-imposed solution is not likely to go over well with most Americans. But after the elections, Obama may have fewer constraints, though perhaps less congressional support.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai instructed the Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee, scheduled to meet for the first time in months on Tuesday, to inform him of any plan to authorize construction that the U.S. administration might deem diplomatically sensitive.

"We want our state to be declared under an international agreement," Abbas told the agency while visiting the Jordanian capital of Amman Thursday. "If this could not happen, the Arabs will go to the UN Security Council to get recognition of Palestinian statehood." This may also be part of the coordinated end-game to impose a final solution on Israel.