Jews Central Figure Of All Earthly Offense: Palestinians seek U.N. nationhood
Israel fending off attacks,
U.N. vote approaching
Netanyahu has been forced to stand before its only ally's Congress like a defendant in a criminal case. He restated Israel's only possible position if it hopes not to be pushed into the sea.
He said Israel cannot move its borders back to those used before the 1967 war, arguing that Israel would be only nine miles wide at its narrowest point and thus would be vulnerable to invasion.
Though he did not use the phrase of one of his predecessors, Menachim Begin, he virtually promised - "Never Again!"
On Thursday, Obama proposed that the 1967 boundaries become a baseline for territorial negotiations, an idea that Netanyahu quickly rejected. Obama later reiterated his position, emphasizing that the pre-1967 baseline should be subject to land swaps.
But Netanyahu's speech also suggests that Israel and the Obama administration face an uphill struggle to convince allies in Europe and elsewhere that they should embrace the peace process and not Palestinian efforts to win recognition in the United Nations to make them a full fledged member this fall.
Palestinians dismissed Netanyahu's speech as little more than a restatement of familiar Israeli demands.
After appearing to lecture Obama in a White House meeting last week, Netanyahu struck a more gracious tone Tuesday, thanking the president for supporting Israeli security. Lawmakers rose repeatedly to applaud the Israeli leader, sending an implicit message that the Obama administration should not push Israel too far.
Even one of Obama's closest allies appeared to criticize the president. On Monday night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) chided the White House for suggesting that Israel should return to the pre-1967 borders.
No one should set premature parameters about borders, about building, or about anything else," Reid said in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group known as AIPAC, which Obama had addressed a day earlier.
Others said Netanyahu may have gone too far. Continuing "to spar with the president risks deeper tension and mistrust with the Obama administration, which ultimately undermines Israel's interests," said Haim Malka, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Netanyahu appeared to show movement on a few key points, analysts said.
He now says Israel will need a "long-term" military presence in the Jordan Valley, on the eastern edge of the West Bank, rather than a permanent presence, said Zvika Krieger of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace in Washington.
Netanyahu also acknowledged for the first time last week that Israel would need to give up some smaller Jewish settlements in the West Bank, though it will keep larger ones, in any final peace deal.
Krieger described Netanyahu's comments as "Israel's starting offer for negotiations."