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Out of the spotlight
The Palestinians retreated from their agreement to begin indirect, US-mediated peace talks two weeks ago after Israel announced plans to build 1,600 homes for Jews in the settlement of Ramat Shlomo near East Jerusalem.
The announcement of the disputed housing project embarrassed Vice President Joe Biden during a visit to Israel this month and drew strong US condemnation. Netanyahu insisted he had been blindsided by Israeli bureaucrats.
Shortly before Netanyahu met Obama, Israeli media reported that Israel's Jerusalem municipality gave final approval last Thursday to a separate plan to build 20 homes for Jews on the site of a defunct hotel in East Jerusalem.
Despite a promise from Netanyahu of confidence-building steps -- which have not been disclosed publicly -- to encourage Palestinians to return to talks, the White House sought to keep his meeting with Obama out of the spotlight.
It was held in the evening after Obama signed a landmark US healthcare reform bill. Netanyahu met Obama for about 90 minutes, a White House spokesman said. But he did not leave for two more hours, apparently after meeting Obama aides.
Israeli officials said Netanyahu planned to use his visit to discuss US-led efforts to pressure Iran, the Jewish state's archfoe, over its nuclear program.
The White House and Israeli officials had no immediate comment on the talks. But the warm welcome Netanyahu received earlier on Capitol Hill underscored the political difficulties Obama faces in pressuring Israel for concessions.
Critics have said Obama, who promised at the start of his administration to make Middle East peacemaking a high priority, underestimated the obstacles.
Israel captured East Jerusalem, along with the West Bank, in a 1967 war and regards all of Jerusalem as its capital. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they hope to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"Netanyahu's policy is the one that is obstructing the return to negotiations," Nabil Abu Rdainah, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said in Ramallah.
"We are ready to go back to negotiations if Netanyahu adheres to what came in the statement of the Quartet."
At a meeting in Moscow on Friday, the quartet of mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- called on Israel to freeze settlement activity in line with a 2003 peace "road map." That plan also obliged the Palestinians to take action to disarm militants.
Netanyahu began his Washington visit on Monday, declaring in an address to the influential pro-Israel lobby AIPAC that "Jerusalem is not a settlement, it's our capital."