NEW YORK – Barack Obama has told Israel
it cannot permanently occupy and settle on Palestinian land in a speech to the
United Nations. 

The move marks another bitter shift in
the rocky relationship with the president and the country’s closest ally. 

Obama said both sides would benefit if
Israel recognized it cannot permanently occupy the land and if Palestinians
rejected incitement and recognized Israel’s legitimacy.

“Surely Israelis and Palestinians will
be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of
Israel,” he said on Tuesday.

“But Israel must recognize that it
cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land.”

He added: “We all have to do
better as leaders in tamping down, rather than encouraging, a notion of identity
that leads us to diminish others.”

Following his speech, the president
held a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York on
Wednesday.

According to a briefing, Obama raised
deep concerns about the settlements as an obstacle to a two-state solution, and
 Netanyahu pushed back. 

It was not clear whether Obama offered
the Israeli leader any hints about whether he planned to lay out parameters for
a peace deal before he leaves office — something that White House officials do
not rule out and that would rankle Netanyahu.

White House deputy national security
adviser Ben Rhodes said that the United States has discussed its concerns about
Israeli settlements and “the potential viability of a Palestinian state in
the face of that settlement activity”.

Obama’s efforts to bring about an
Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement have failed over the nearly eight years he
has been in the White House, with the latest push by US Secretary of State John
Kerry collapsing in 2014.

US officials have held out the
possibility Obama could lay out the rough outlines of a deal –
“parameters” in diplomatic parlance – after the November 8
presidential election and before he leaves office in January, but many analysts
doubt this would have much effect.