Netanyahu, Obama to meet at White House

[Joanne98]

Source: CNN

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Obama at the White House on Tuesday, as the allies remain at odds over Israel's plan to build new housing on disputed land in East Jerusalem.

The leaders will meet two weeks after Israel announced the planned construction of 1,600 apartments in a disputed area claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians. That announcement came during Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel and has strained ties between Netanyahu's government and the Obama administration, which is pushing for new talks to end the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Our goal in any of this is to create an atmosphere of trust and open dialogue, to bring these two sides together so that the discussions can be substantive in moving towards comprehensive Middle Eastern peace," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at a Monday briefing.

"I think the president is hopeful that we will in this meeting make progress and ... get these two
parties back to, not just back physically to talks, but to the type of relationship that is necessary for those talks to bear fruit."


Read more: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/23/netanyahu-obama-to-meet-at-white-house/