PM Netanyahu: No Palestine without demilitarization

          Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that his suggestion of a demilitarized Palestinian state was gaining international ground and was the only solution for Middle East peace. "The idea of a demilitarized state will in course become accepted," Netanyahu said after meeting the leaders of France and Italy. "If it is not accepted, there will not be an agreement," he told following his meeting in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "It cannot be that there is a Palestinian state and the struggle will continue within it." Sarkozy, meanwhile, said that Israel must take immediate confidence-building measures for Middle East peace, including a complete freeze of construction in West Bank settlements. The French leader told reporters after his meeting with Netanyahu that Israel must also work to improve freedom of movement for Palestinians in the West Bank. He also called for the immediate creation of a viable Palestinian state and offered to contribute French troops to an international force, with the United States and Paris's EU partners, to secure peace in the region. Netanyahu reiterated his stance that Israel had no intention "of expropriating additional land" for settlements, but that it had a right to build within existing settlements. "All we want is for [the settlers] to have a normal life," he said. He praised the French president as "an old friend of Israel and a great champion of peace and security for our country and the Middle East." Netanyahu had planned to meet in Paris with Washington's top Mideast envoy George Mitchell, but postponed the meeting in order to gain time to iron out differences over West Bank settlements. Defense Minister Ehud Barak will instead meet Mitchell next week in Washington. Speaking to reporters in Paris, Netanyau downplayed the tensions with the U.S. Differences could occur "among the best of friends," Netanyahu said, adding that Israel was in the process of clarifying its settlement policy to Washington. "We have an unbreakable bond of friendship with the United States," Netanyahu added. "I asked for the postponement of the meeting," Netanyahu said about the talks he had planned to hold with Mitchell in the French capital. "Mr. Mitchell agreed immediately. We believed we had to clarify several issues and statistics. The defense minister will do this on Monday in the United States." "We will continue the contacts, with goodwill and with the intention of reaching understandings that will advance a peace process - a diplomatic process between us and the Palestinians, and I hope between us and the rest of the Arab world." Mitchell has been conducting low-profile talks with Israel in a bid to reach an agreement on the settlement issue, a government official told Haaretz. The source said that Israel is considering enacting a temporary freeze on settlement construction, excluding projects already underway, if the United States agrees to continued construction for natural growth once the freeze ends. Israel and the United States have already agreed that all unauthorized outposts are to be removed "within weeks or months," no new settlements are to be built and no Palestinian land is to be confiscated. However, they disagree over the duration of the settlement freeze and the future of settlement construction projects already underway. Israel is offering to halt some settlement construction for up to six months, while the United States is interested in a considerably longer period. In addition, Israel wants to convince Washington that building projects currently underway should be allowed to continue - including the construction of up to several thousand housing units. The leader of the Arab League on Wednesday said that negotiating with Israel while settlements were continuing to expand was tantamount to surrendering on "matters over which we cannot surrender". "Settlements destroy peace and prevent negotiations. If settlement does not stop, there will be a big catastrophe in the peace [process]," Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa told journalists after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi raised the settlement issue in a meeting with Netanyahu in Rome on Tuesday, telling him that settlement construction may become an obstacle for peace, and must be stopped. Netanyahu is reported to have replied that "an agreed-upon formula can be found with the U.S. if this is what they're looking for." Speaking at a press conference after the meeting in Rome, Netanyahu said he had no intention of giving up his vision of a final-status agreement in which a demilitarized Palestinian state acknowledges Israel as a Jewish state. "This isn't a trick or a maneuver," Netanyahu said. "It will become a stepping stone on the way to true peace." Last week, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Israel could not accept the Obama administration's demand to "completely" halt activity in West Bank settlements. "We have no intention of changing the demographic balance in Judea and Samaria," Lieberman said during his talks with the secretary of state in Washington. "Everywhere people are born, people die, and we cannot accept a vision of stopping completely the settlements. We have to keep the natural growth." Still, he said, Israel "ready for direct negotiations with the Palestinians." Clinton, for her part, reiterated that the U.S. viewed a total settlement freeze as "important and essential" step toward achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians. (22,29)