Benjamin Netanyahu 'to offer Palestinians territorial concessions'

Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to offer territorial concessions to the Palestinian leadership on Tuesday as he attempts to defuse a damaging confrontation with President Barack Obama.

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.

The prime minister's vituperative response appears partly rooted in domestic politics. When he left for Washington last week, he faced strong opposition from within his right-wing coalition to the notion of his making any concessions at all.
But on Monday his fractious Likud party united to hail Mr Netanyahu for standing up to President Obama, who was forced to clarify in a speech before America's most powerful pro-Israel lobby that the formula would allow Israel to annex major settlements under a land swap.
"The wisdom and determination of the prime minister and the dividends that they yielded were evident in President Obama's speech," said Carmel Shama-Hacohen, a Likud legislator.
The issue of "pre-1967 lines" is now likely to form the basis of Israel's next election, which could come as soon as next year, with Mr Netanyahu leading a rejectionist camp and centrist and left-wing parties supporting Mr Obama's call.
But even as Mr Netanyahu celebrates shoring up his base, Tuesday's speech represents a difficult balancing act that risks alienating his supporters if he goes too far and the US administration if he does not go far enough.
Mr Netanyahu has tried to repair his relationship with Mr Obama by praising the president's speech before the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee on Sunday.
But animosity is likely to linger with Democrats angry that Mr Netanyahu's response gave Republicans ammunition, at the beginning of an election season, to attack Mr Obama for "throwing Israel under the bus".
Mr Obama appeared bewildered by the controversy, pointing out that he was only advocating in public the policies pursued in private by both Bill Clinton and George W Bush.