Obama, Netanyahu to meet as U.S. peace bid flounders

By Jeffrey Heller and Ross Colvin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the Palestinians on Monday to resume negotiations with Israel, issuing the call before a meeting with President Barack Obama on the stalled Middle East peace process.

Saying "no Israeli government has been so willing to restrain settlement activity," Netanyahu told a conference of American Jewish leaders: "I say today to (Palestinian President) Mahmoud Abbas ... let us seize the moment to reach a historic agreement. Let us begin talks immediately."

A senior Israeli official said Netanyahu planned to tell Obama at the White House that "we mean business" and Israel was willing to be "generous in restraining" construction in settlements in the West Bank to get peace talks started again.

Abbas, who has threatened not to run in Palestinian elections in January and accused Washington of failing to press Israel strongly enough on settlements, has made a halt to their expansion a precondition for reviving negotiations.

Israeli President Shimon Peres has asked Abbas to reconsider. Netanyahu made no such appeal in his speech at the conference of the Jewish Federations of North America.

Rejecting a complete freeze, Netanyahu has proposed temporarily limiting building in the West Bank enclaves to 3,000 housing units. He has said East Jerusalem, also captured by Israel in a 1967 war, was must be kept out of the equation.

"My goal is not negotiations for the sake of negotiations. My goal is to achieve a permanent peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians -- and soon," Netanyahu said in his speech to the Jewish Federations of North America.

"Let's get on with it. Let's move," he said, echoing appeals he has made in the past.