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WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday during a carefully choreographed White House make-up meeting that was short on details that they'd press for a quick resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

At a picture-taking session with Netanyahu, Obama said he hoped that direct Middle East talks could begin "well before" Israel's moratorium on new West Bank settlements expires in September. He called on Israelis and Palestinians to take confidence-building steps to prepare the ground, but he gave few specifics.

"The president and I discussed concrete steps that could be done now - in the coming days, in the coming weeks - to move the peace process further along in a very robust way," Netanyahu said.

Obama made Middle East peace a priority on taking office, but he has struggled to show progress. The tone at Tuesday's meeting suggested that he has discarded his tactic of public confrontation with Israel, after it backfired.

The meeting was orchestrated down to the smallest detail to project an image of an untroubled U.S.-Israeli alliance, an image with potential political benefits for the president and other Democrats in November's midterm elections.

Obama even signaled, albeit in diplomatic code, that his drive for nuclear nonproliferation doesn't extend to Israel's unacknowledged nuclear arsenal. "We strongly ... >>>