A White House envoy tried Friday to get Israelis and Palestinians talking again after more than a year of deadlock, while confronting a second challenge – navigating the rocky relations between Israel and the US. Senator and veteran negotiator George Mitchell's most important meeting was Friday afternoon with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has rejected Washington's calls for a halt to Israeli construction in east Jerusalem and has seen tensions with Israel's most important ally rise dramatically on his watch. “I look forward to working with the Obama administration to move peace forward,” Netanyahu told Mitchell at the beginning of the meeting. “We are serious about it, we know you are serious about it and we hope the Palestinians respond.” The prime minister's office said the meeting went well and Netanyahu and Mitchell would convene again Sunday. Netanyahu said in a televised interview Thursday that there would be no construction freeze in east Jerusalem, repeating a position that has brought him into conflict with President Barack Obama. Nonetheless, Israeli government officials said Friday they were optimistic that indirect negotiations between the sides would be announced during Mitchell's visit, allowing Israelis and Palestinians to begin negotiations again for the first time since late 2008. earlier in the day, Mitchell held talks with Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak and was scheduled to follow up those talks by meeting Palestinian leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinians have said they will not hold direct negotiations with Israel as long as construction continues in Israel's West Bank settlements and in east Jerusalem. The indirect talks, in which Mitchell is expected to shuttle between the sides as a mediator, are designed to allow the Palestinians to resume negotiations without officially dropping their demands. But they also show the extent to which the sides – who had been talking directly for nearly two decades – have become estranged.
