Kuwait Times

Published Date: April 25, 2009

WASHINGTON: Israel risks losing support from Arab nations against Iran if it does not make progress in Mideast peace talks with the Palestinians, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who took office April 1, has refused to accept the two-state solution for peace in the region and shown little interest in talks with the Palestinians.

Israel also considers Iran its main enemy, and is especially worried about Tehran's nuclear program, which it fears is aimed at making a nuclear weapon.
For Israel to get the kind of strong support it's looking for vis-a-vis Iran, it can't stay on the sidelines with respect to the Palestinians and the peace efforts," Clinton told legislators on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.

The two "go hand in hand," Clinton said. Arab nations want "very much to support the strongest possible posture toward Iran," Clinton said. "They believe that Israel's willingness to reenter into discussions with the Palestinian Authority strengthens them in being able to deal with Iran," she said. If there is progress on peace talks "then a lot of the Arab countries are saying to us there will be a sequencing of support that will strengthen the region's response to Iran," she said.

Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Washington in May, and the United States is "not going to prejudge the Israeli position until we've had face-to-face talks," Clinton said. President Barack Obama has made clear to Israel he believes that the path to peace lies in already agreed frameworks made in the stalled roadmap plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace and the 2007 Annapolis agreement.

However Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister of Israel's new right-leaning government, said that the Annapolis document did not bind Israel, though he did accept the roadmap as the basis for progress. - AFP