Israel ..., keeping "cool" under pressure ...

Stiri razlete:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at present accepts only Palestinian "self-government," and not the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, an Israeli newspaper reported yesterday.
The new hardline Israeli premier, who took office last month following February 10 elections, is currently revising Israel’s policy toward the peace process, and plans to present the new policy guidelines to Obama at their White House meeting (May 18).

They said, the idea of two states for two peoples was currently not realistic because on the ground these entities existed: Israel, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and "Hamastan" in Gaza.
The officials also demanded the Palestinians recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, before one talks about a Palestinian state.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev would not deny or confirm the newspaper report, but urged to be "very careful" with it. He referred to Netanyahu’s brief address of Monday night to the annual conference of the US pro-Israel lobby, in which he called for an immediate resumption of peace talks without preconditions.

"He has said over and over again that he does not want to rule over the Palestinian people", Regev would only say.
As for the Netanyahu government’s policy towards settlements, the premier will promise Obama he will remove unauthorised settlers’ outpost in the West Bank, and may agree to freeze construction in isolated settlements, while continuing to build in Jerusalem and several key large settlement cities, such as Ma’aleh Adumim and Ariel, the Ma’ariv daily added.
As part of a new combined approach", ... Arab diplomats said this week that the U.S. has asked the 22-member Arab League to amend a 2002 peace initiative to make it more palatable to Israel.
The plan offers Israel collective Arab recognition, peace and normal relations in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from territory it occupied in the 1967 Mideast war, the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.
(Israel rejected the initiative when it was first proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002... but, following the 2007 Arab League summit, ... Israel has said the initiative could be a starting point for discussions).

Several Arab diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said this week that ... the Americans are asking Arab nations to drop demands for a right of return for Palestinian refugees and agree to either resettle them in the host countries or in the Palestinian territories.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Israeli President Shimon Peres on Wednesday called a U.N. investigation accusing Israel of recklessness during the war in Gaza "outrageous" and said the Jewish state will not apologize for defending its citizens against Hamas missile attacks.

"We think it's outrageous. We shall never accept it. We don't think that we have to apologize because we have the right to defend the lives of our children and women," Peres told reporters after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to convey Israel's anger about the board of inquiry's findings.
"We don't accept one word of what the board writes," he said. "They were unfair. They were one-sided."
He conceded that the Israeli military made some mistakes — as all armies do during war.