The Jerusalem municipality has given final approval to a group of settlers construct 20 apartments in a controversial hotel in East Jerusalem, Haaretz learned on Tuesday.

The announcement comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington smoothing over ties with the United States over the latest settlement-related tensions, and hours before the premier was to meet with President Barack Obama in Washington.

Apparently Netanyahu’s fiery speech last night was only a prologue of how disinterested the Israeli PM is in mending fences with the Obama administration. Marc Lynch of George Washington University tweets that Obama should cancel his meeting with Netanyahu at the White House, scheduled to begin in just a couple of minutes.

So what did Netanyahu tell Clinton? No one knows right now, but Mitchell’s trip is back on. Jackson Diehl at The Washington Post is under the impression that the Israelis are proposing a don’t-ask-don’t-tell bargain on settlement construction: the Israelis pledge not to build in East Jerusalem for another couple of years; the U.S. pledges not to be the strictest building inspector. Who knows? It’s not implausible, but Diehl isn’t exactly transparent about whether he’s reporting this out or analyzing what’s going on.

Interestingly, President Obama’s poll numbers among the Israeli public are rebounding, according to a new Ha’aretz poll, with most seeing him as “fair or friendly.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to Moscow on Thursday (EPA/ZUMApress.com)

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses the America Israel Public Affairs Committee conference on Monday morning, she’ll be addressing a global audience eager for clues about the future of the Mideast peace process and the U.S.-Israel relationship after last week’s diplomatic tumult over Jerusalem settlements. Those in the peace camp wonder if the natural impulse to defuse the tension will lead Clinton to paper over the Israeli government’s plans for continuing settlement construction in Jerusalem — or whether she will continue her challenge to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also scheduled to speak at the conference, to demonstrate his commitment to peace.

Clinton said the announcement of the Ramat Shlomo settlement expansion occurring during Biden’s visit was “an insult to the United States.” So far, however, Netanyahu has not backed away from the Ramat Shlomo plan, despite more than a week’s worth of diplomatic acrimony. And no Obama official has yet publicly challenged Netanyahu on the additional settlement expansions Peace Now documented.

“Clinton’s speech should clearly explain, to Israel and to its friends in America, why settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem are so destructive,” Peace Now spokesman Ori Nir said. “She should say that they both prejudge the outcome of the negotiations and that they send a message to the Palestinians, which reverberates worldwide, that Israel’s government is not serious about peace.”

A map of settlements in East Jersusalem. Click to enlarge. (Courtesy of Peace Now)

The Obama administration took office in the wake of Israel’s operations against Hamas in Gaza, a move that heightened Palestinian reluctance to return to negotiations for an independent state. Obama’s team vowed to breathe diplomatic life into the process, and pressed the new Netanyahu to agree to a freeze on settlement construction as a gesture of good faith. Instead, Netanyahu resisted for months, stalling momentum for the process and creating bitterness between Jerusalem and Washington for which each blamed the other. In November, Netanyahu agreed to a partial freeze on settlement construction for ten months that excluded East Jerusalem — further angering the Palestinians. On the eve of Biden’s visit, both sides agreed to “indirect” talks heavily mediated by administration envoy George Mitchell, who scrapped a trip to the region after the Ramat Shlomo announcement.

Speaking in Russia on Thursday, Clinton indicated that the Obama administration would move forward with a rescheduled Mitchell visit in the near future even if Netanyahu did not back down on Ramat Shlomo. “Our goals remain the same,” Clinton told reporters. “It is to re-launch negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians on a path that will lead to a two-state solution. Nothing has happened that in any way affects our commitment to pursuing that.”

Amjad Atallah, director of the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force and a former legal adviser to Palestinian peace negotiators, pointed out that the Palestinians and the Arab world at large have felt let down by Obama’s inability to break the diplomatic stalemate. “Having an administration that so obviously wants peace but seems so obviously unable to deliver it is more disheartening than thinking the United States was a bad guy to begin with,” Atallah said in an email. “Having said that, the love in the love affair (even if temporarily sour) is still there.”

Similarly sour are the feelings between the Obama administration and the more conservative wings of the pro-Israel community. That sourness took an unexpected turn at an unexpected target this week.  On Tuesday, Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. troops in the Middle East and South Asia, testified to a Senate panel that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel,” destabilizes moderate regimes and gives a pretext to extremists. In response, the Anti-Defamation League’s longtime national director, Abraham Foxman, called Petraeus’ comments “dangerous and counterproductive.” It is the first time Petraeus has been criticized by a lobby group since the progressive activist organization MoveOn questioned his integrity during his 2007 Iraq testimony.

Most observers expect Clinton to sound decidedly reconciliatory notes in her AIPAC address. Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who works with Atallah at the New America Foundation, encouraged Clinton to pivot to productive moves on peace negotiations — especially the presentation of the administration’s own peace plan. “Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has often drawn the analogy between ending the conflict and cutting off the tail of a dog – in other words, you do both in one chop, not incremental snips,” Levy said. “When it is ready to lead rather than be led, the administration should place a clear choice of an implementation plan for two states in front of Israel and stick to that plan.” Levy added that Netanyahu’s embrace of settlement expansion “may strengthen American resolve to put forward such a plan.”

But Netanyahu’s obstructionism could be pushing the administration into a more intensified phase of diplomatic effort on Mideast peacemaking, and one that benefits the Palestinians more than the Netanyahu government. According to The New York Times, the Obama team is considering putting forward its own peace plan — which would effectively dare Netanyahu to oppose it. Key graf:

After Washington condemned the housing announcement, Mr. Netanyahu apologized for its timing, but has so far not responded to American demands to rescind the building plan. The series of tense, back-channel interchanges between the two governments, in the words of one administration official, demonstrated to White House officials that “the current status quo won’t work, and won’t get us anywhere.”

As the Times points out, putting forward a peace plan creates a domestic political problem for Netanyahu, who’d have to decide “between the peace talks and the right-wing elements of his coalition” or whether to form a new government with the more centrist Kadima party, which has positioned itself much closer to the Obama administration and the peace process. For Netanyahu to side with the rightist elements of his coalition would place Israel in deeper opposition to the U.S., which is not a safe place in Israeli politics. If, on the other hand, Netanyahu opted to more fulsomely embrace both the peace process and Israel’s American patron, that would be a win-win from Obama’s perspective.

I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I’ve had here in Israel. We must build an atmosphere to support negotiations, not complicate them. This announcement underscores the need to get negotiations under way that can resolve all the outstanding issues of the conflict. The United States recognizes that Jerusalem is a deeply important issue for Israelis and Palestinians and for Jews, Muslims and Christians. We believe that through good faith negotiations, the parties can mutually agree on an outcome that realizes the aspirations of both parties for Jerusalem and safeguards its status for people around the world. Unilateral action taken by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations on permanent status issues. As George Mitchell said in announcing the proximity talks, “we encourage the parties and all concerned to refrain from any statements or actions which may inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of these talks.”

And to think, Janine Zacharia of The Washington Post filed a pool report quoting Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu saying of Biden, “We’ve been personal friends for almost three decades. Can you believe it’s been that long?” Well, friends tell each other uncomfortable truths…

Today’s announcement by the Government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements. Let me say to all the people of the region and world: our commitment to achieving a solution with two states living side by side in peace and security is unwavering.

Clinton created a great deal of outrage in the Arab world after she called a previous offer from Netanyahu that came far short of a total freeze “unprecedented.” This reply is far more restrained.

“I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” Palin told Walters. “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”

Uh, more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead? Does Palin think the end times, heralded by the ingathering of the Jews, is nigh? In reality, Jews are immigrating to Israel at a fairly historically low rate.

J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami had this reaction, issued in a statement from the pro-peace pro-Israel pro-Palestinian group:

J Street rejects Sarah Palin’s comments attacking President Obama’s sensible policy on Israeli settlements in the West Bank yesterday during an ABC News interview with Barbara Walters.

Palin’s pandering to her right-wing base comes at the expense of the security of the State of Israel, the lives of those actually living the conflict, and the fundamental American interest in achieving a two-state solution in the near term. Her words reveal a glaring ignorance of damaging facts and a callous disregard of past and present U.S. policy.

For decades, American presidents have held that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are an impediment to peace. They are joined by the majority of Israelis and pro-Israel Americans who view the growing settlement enterprise as a threat to Israel’s very future as a Jewish democracy.

President Obama’s administration continued along that path yesterday, rightly and sensibly expressing concern with unilateral actions on both sides that would preempt the negotiation of final status issues that are necessary to achieve a two-state solution to the conflict.

J Street supports President Obama and Middle East Peace Envoy George Mitchell as they press the parties to begin the hard work of achieving a two-state solution, the only way to secure Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic homeland.

To tell Jewish people they can’t live in certain neighborhoods is really to deny them not just their neighborhood, it’s to deny them their basic sense of liberty.

That’s not far from the line of The Israel Project, an extremely conservative Zionist group that’s compared the Obama administration’s policy here to “racism.”

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I’ll be in Israel this week and touring the highly disputed settlements that Obama and Hillary are trying to stop.

“Highly disputed” is one way of putting it. “Illegal” is another, and “contrary to Israeli obligations under the Annapolis accord” is a third. The timing of Huckabee’s visit is also significant. While Huckabee’s in Israel and the occupied West Bank — granted, it’s a 140-character tweet, but he implies that the settlements are in Israel, which they’re not; they’re in the Israeli-occupied West Bank — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is in Washington meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today and President Obama tomorrow. Mubarak’s message:

In White House meetings beginning Monday, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is expected to tell the Obama administration that Arab nations want peace, but are unwilling to abide Mr. Obama’s call to make good-faith concessions to Israel until Israel takes tangible steps like freezing settlements, an Egyptian official said.

In other words, Huckabee will be in Israel at just the moment when Israel’s ostensible friends on the American right want to hear that the United States will support settlement construction and other obstructionist Israeli behavior and face no U.S. reprisals — regardless of the actual consequences for Israel of turning away from a two-state solution. And there’s a lot of room in the GOP field for precisely the politician to do that.

First of all, we really don’t have any intention to change the demographic balance in Judea and Samaria.

Couple things there. First, “Judea and Samaria” are the biblical names for the West Bank, and are typically used by irredentist Jews as a subtle but agressive way of saying “this land is ours and we’re not giving it up,” in the same way that calling Jerusalem “al-Quds” is a way for Arabs to stake their own claim not to give up on controlling the city. Second, emphasizing the “demographic balance” of the West Bank — let’s see if the Israelis stick with that. It would appear at first blush to be a way of shifting the conversation away from the actual Palestinian land controlled by Israel and onto the people who inhabit that land. That would be a handy, if transparent, way of moving away from the terms of the Road Map.

But what could it really mean? In arguing against a settlement freeze, Lieberman made a point of saying ” in every place around the world, baby are born (inaudible), people get married, some pass away.” Uh, sure, and all of that changes the “demographic balance,” particularly as the same holds true for the Palestinians of the West Bank. Perhaps this is all a way of trying to get Clinton to accept the current demographic balance as one worth preserving, which is incompatible with Israeli disengagement from the West Bank and the birth of a Palestinian state.

Either way, Clinton didn’t yield on the administration’s settlement-freeze position:

Well, as President Obama, Senator Mitchell and I have said, we want to see a stop to the settlements. We think that is an important and essential part of pursuing the efforts leading to a comprehensive peace agreement and the creation of a Palestinian state next to a Israeli-Jewish state that is secure in its borders and future. We believe that this process which Senator Mitchell is quarterbacking for us has just begun. There are a number of critical concerns, many of which overlap in their impact and significance, that will be explored in the coming weeks as Senator Mitchell engages more deeply into the specifics as to where the Israelis and the Palestinians are willing to go together.

I think that the whole issue that you’ve raised is one that we’ve expressed our opinion on. And in looking at the history of the Bush Administration, there were no informal or oral enforceable agreements. That has been verified by the official record of the Administration and by the personnel in the positions of responsibility. Our former ambassador Dan Kurtzer has written an op-ed that appeared in the last few days that lays out our position on that.

When asked if Lieberman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will go beyond Netanyahu’s call for a “limited” Palestinian state, Clinton replied, “I think if one looks at Israeli history, there have been prime ministers going back to the beginning of Israelis’ statehood that have staked out positions which have changed over time … I leave that to them to decide.”