Obama: Israeli-Palestinian peace elusive, but must still try

U.S. President Barack Obama attends the opening session of the Nuclear Summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Monday, March 24, 2014. President Barack Obama gathered with world leaders in a day of delicate diplomacy, as he sought to rally the international community Monday around efforts to isolate Russia following its incursion into Ukraine. Nuclear terrorism was the official topic as Obama and other world leaders streamed in to a convention center in The Hague for a two-day nuclear summit. But the real focus was on a hurriedly scheduled meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized economies to address the crisis in Ukraine on the sidelines of the nuclear summit. (AP Photo/Sean Gallup, POOL) (The Associated Press)

President Obama called on the United States to keep working toward Mideast peace despite slim chances for near-term success.

Sitting down with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Obama said the U.S. wants to be helpful in reducing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians which have boiled over into a spate of stabbings and other violence lasting several months. Obama said it was critical for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to "unequivocally condemn" the attacks, fight incitement and pursue dialogue with Israelis.

"Although obviously this is a time at which the prospects of serious peace may seem distant, it's important that we continue to try," Obama said in the Oval Office. 

On the agenda for the meeting, which coincided with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, were discussions about renewing a 10-year security agreement that could lead to more U.S. military assistance to Israel. Obama said he also planned to discuss terrorism with Rivlin, whose role in the Israeli government is largely ceremonial.

Obama has lowered expectations for what the U.S. might be able to accomplish in the near term following unsuccessful attempts to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace earlier in his presidency. Hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House last month, Obama spoke only of getting "back on a path toward peace," while Netanyahu said he hadn't given up hope.

Obama had no comment to offer about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has said he plans to meet with Netanyahu this month amid an uproar over his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. Rivlin, who has sought to promote co-existence between Israelis and Arabs, offered an implicit rebuke of the GOP front-runner. 

"We have no war with Islam," Rivlin said. "We have war against those who are using ideas in order to create extremism and threats toward the whole innocent people of the world."