#Israel - Netanyahu Speaks To U.S. Congress

AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.S. Congress on Tuesday that he was willing to make "painful compromises" for peace with the Palestinians, for the first time explicitly saying some West Bank settlements would find themselves outside Israel's final borders.

But he tacked on a list of oft-stated conditions that have been unacceptable to the Palestinians. A senior Palestinian official immediately rejected Netanyahu's peace outline as a "declaration of war."

Speaking before a warmly receptive joint meeting of Congress that showered him with more than two dozen sustained standing ovations, Netanyahu said Israel wants and needs peace but repeated his flat rejection of a return to what he called the "indefensible" borders that Israel had before the 1967 Mideast war.

FULL STORY