Two days after he delighted his right-wing base at home by clashing publicly with Mr Obama over the contours of a future Palestinian state, the Israeli prime minister will seek to recast himself as a peacemaker in an address before Congress.
Israeli aides have trumpeted the speech as one of the most important Mr Netanyahu has ever made.
The contents of the speech have not been divulged, but until last week he had been expected to accept, on completion of a peace deal, the principle of Palestinian sovereignty in Gaza and much of the West Bank.
But the offer, which is likely to be less generous than those made by his predecessors, has been overshadowed by Mr Obama's call last Friday that the borders of a Palestinian state should roughly be based on the ceasefire lines that existed before Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.
Sitting beside the president during a tense meeting at the White House, Mr Netanyahu publicly rejected a return to "1967 lines". It is unclear whether he has made changes to his speech to Congress as a result. » | Adrian Blomfield, Jerusalem | Monday, May 23, 2011
