The editor in chief of Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, David Landau, confirmed yesterday that he has pleaded with Secretary of State Rice to “rape” Israel and its neighbors into resolving their problems.

The comment, which was made during a gathering of 20 Israeli leaders — including academic, military, and press figures — at the home of the American ambassador in Tel Aviv, Richard Jones, was criticized in the last few days by Israeli- and American-based Jewish leaders. The gathering, during one of Ms. Rice’s visits to the region several months ago, was convened at her request, so she could hear a wide range of Israeli views, Mr. Landau said.

“‘Rape’ is a word in the English language,” Mr. Landau told The New York Sun yesterday as he reconstructed the event. He said several people, “from the right and from the left,” spoke at the dinner, and that when his turn came, he said, “Israel, after 40 years of failing to resolve its problem of occupation,” needed a push from America. “Rape it into resolving the problem,” he told Ms. Rice.

Some of the participants apparently did not like the comment, Mr. Landau said, and relayed it to one of Israel’s leading television reporters, Ehud Yaari, who since then has aired the quote on Israeli TV without attribution, although Mr. Landau said he had never asked that his name be concealed. “I don’t go back on what I said,” he said, adding that he had published similar sentiments for decades.

Even as a Jerusalem Post cub reporter in the 1970s, he said, he had pleaded with the then-undersecretary of state, Joseph Cisco, to “squeeze” Israel and the rest of the Middle East’s warring parties, so they could achieve peace.