Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is willing to tear down settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank in return for US backing on its stance on arch-foe Iran, local media reported on Tuesday.Skip related content Netanyahu told his right-wing Likud faction on Monday that Israel would have to dismantle what it considers illegal outposts, as demanded by Washington, since the issue of Iran was more important, newspaper reports said. "I identify the danger and that's why I am willing to take unpopular steps such as evacuating outposts. The Iranian threat is above everything," the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot quoted Netanyahu as saying. "There are things on which you have to compromise." Since returning to the prime minister's post on March 31, Netanyahu has repeatedly said that Iran's controversial nuclear drive posed the biggest threat to Israel since its creation in 1948. At his first meeting with Barack Obama in Washington last week, Netanyahu sought to win support for his stance from the new US president, who has said he is open to dialogue with the Islamic republic. Obama assured Netanyahu that his diplomatic efforts to halt Iran's nuclear drive were not open-ended and told him that "settlements must stop" so that the stalled Middle East process could move forward. Settlement outposts in the West Bank, which Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, are those built without Israeli government approval. However, the international community considers all Jewish settlements on occupied land illegal. "Soon we will have to take down outposts," Yediot quoted Netanyahu as telling the Likud MPs, most of whom oppose dismantling any settlements in the West Bank. "Our relations with the United States are important and we must preserve them," he said. "The situation today is not like the situation back in 1996 and 1999 (during Netanyahu's first term as premier). We mustn't waste time. "In this reality, we have to make decisions. We are going to have to subordinate our priorities to existential needs and reach as broad a national unity as possible to repel the danger," he said. Netanyahu dispatched a delegation headed by Intelligence Services Minister Dan Meridor to London on Tuesday for talks with US officials on settlement outposts and Iran. "The two delegations will discuss putting in place joint teams that will discuss the question of the Iranian nuclear programme and settlement outposts," a senior official told AFP. Israel and Western powers fear Iran's nuclear programme is a cover for efforts to built atomic weapons, claims repeatedly denied by Tehran which has vowed to press on with its activities. Israel itself is widely believed to be the only nuclear armed state in the Middle East but adopts a policy of neither confirming nor denying whether it has a nuclear arsenal. Under the 2003 international "roadmap" peace plan, Israel committed to dismantling outposts erected since March 2001 and a government commission later determined there were 26 such structures in the West Bank. Watchdog groups say the actual number of such outposts is more than 50.Netanyahu to 'give up outposts' for US backing on Iran
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
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