US defence secretary Leon Panetta has urged Israel to end isolation in the Middle East. Photograph: Pool/ReutersA spokesman for Israel's prime minister has said the Palestinian leadership is to blame for the deadlock in peace talks, a day after the US defence secretary asserted that Israel was not doing enough to renew negotiations.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Binyamin Netanyahu, said Israel remains ready for the resumption of peace talks without preconditions. The Palestinians, he said, are "playing diplomatic games to try to cover their position, which is to boycott Israel and to refuse to enter negotiations".
In a speech at a Brookings Institution forum in Washington on Friday, US defence secretary Leon Panetta urged Israel to "reach out and mend fences" with Turkey, Egypt and other security partners in the Middle East, saying he was troubled by the Jewish state's growing isolation in the volatile region.
Panetta said that while Israel is not solely responsible for its isolation, it could more actively attempt to reverse the trend.
"For example, Israel can reach out and mend fences with those who share an interest in regional stability countries like Turkey and Egypt, as well as Jordan," he said.
"This is not impossible. If the gestures are rebuked, the world will see those rebukes for what they are. And that is exactly why Israel should pursue them."
He also pressed Israeli leaders to do more to restart peace talks with the Palestinians – saying "Just get to the damned table" – and underscored Barack Obama's determination to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
He called Iran "a very grave threat to all of us" and said any Iranian disruption of the free flow of commerce through the Persian Gulf is a "red line" for the US.
Panetta, 73, who made his first visit to Israel as Pentagon chief in October, said it is in the interests of Israel as well as Turkey, a Nato ally of the US, to reconcile. He said he would take that message to Ankara when he visits there in two weeks.
He urged the Israelis to address their concerns about Egypt's political revolution through increased communication and co-operation with Egyptian authorities, "not by stepping away from them".
Addressing an issue that is in the primary domain of secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Panetta urged Israel to "lean forward" to achieve peace with the Palestinians. Peace talks have been moribund for more than a year.
"Rather than undermining the Palestinian Authority, it is in Israel's interests to strengthen it by … continuing to transfer Palestinian tax revenues and pursuing other avenues of co-operation," he said.
Panetta spoke starkly of the challenge of Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"No greater threat exists to the security and prosperity of the Middle East than a nuclear-armed Iran," he said, adding that Obama has not ruled out using military force to stop Iran from going nuclear.
In a question-and-answer session with his audience after his speech, Panetta laid out in detail his thinking on the arguments against an Israeli or US military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
He said such an attack would "at best" delay Iran's nuclear programme by one or two years. Among the unintended consequences, he said, would be an increase in regional support for Iran and the likelihood of Iranian retaliation against US forces and bases in the Middle East. It also would have harmful economic consequences and could lead to military escalation, he said.
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