Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes to the White House today to meet with President Barack Obama, who has been struggling to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to return to the negotiating table.

Obama, whose staff confirmed the meeting only after Netanyahu arrived in Washington yesterday, will host the Israeli leader in the evening. Netanyahu will give a noontime speech to a conference of North American Jewish organizations and will also visit Congressional leaders on Capitol Hill.

Both in the speech and at the White House, Netanyahu said he would stress Israel’s willingness to resume Middle East peace talks that were frozen almost 11 months ago. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, 74, says he won’t go back to the negotiating table until Israel halts all settlement building in the West Bank, which Netanyahu has refused to do.

“We’re ready to negotiate; the Palestinians are not,” Netanyahu, 60, told reporters yesterday aboard his plane on the flight to Washington. “It’s that simple.”

Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for Abbas, said the meeting in Washington was being held amid “political paralysis” with Israel insisting on continuing settlement construction and the U.S. “unable to carry out its assumed role” of pushing the peace process forward.

“This vacuum will lead sooner or later to an unstable situation in the Middle East and to violence that waits for such an opportunity to happen,” he said in an interview. “This situation can only be rescued if the U.S. administration hurries up to put real pressures on Israel.”

Netanyahu’s visit to Washington comes barely a week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Jerusalem and publicly praised his proposal to limit settlement expansion to the completion of about 2,500 new homes, calling the offer “unprecedented.”

Palestinians were flabbergasted by Clinton’s remarks, recalling that Obama had earlier demanded a total freeze on settlement construction. Abbas said on Nov. 5 that he no longer wants to run for re-election in January and aides expressed concern that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may erupt again in violence.

Peace Process

At Clinton’s meeting last week with Arab leaders in Marrakech, Morocco, which was overshadowed by her shift on settlements, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said the remarks had crippled the Middle East peace process.

While in Washington, Netanyahu will likely focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran’s nuclear program, and a United Nations report that said Israel may have committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

He will also meet with members of Congress, Obama administration officials and leaders of Jewish organizations as well as address the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities, an umbrella group for North American Jewish organizations.

Netanyahu will stop in Paris on his way back from the U.S. and meet Nov. 11 with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the prime minister’s office announced yesterday.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 9, 2009 07:49 EST