The US launched a frantic bid to avert the collapse of Middle East talks ahead of a deadline yesterday, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel must choose between settlements and peace.
Abbas, who has threatened to quit US-organized negotiations unless Israel extends a moratorium on housing for settlers in the occupied territories, condemned “the mentality of expansion and domination” that he said controls Israel’s policies.
Abbas met US Middle East envoy George Mitchell at a New York hotel before talks with other Arab leaders and then leaving the US without any sign of a deal.
The US administration also held talks with Israeli leaders, according to US officials.
“We are doing everything we can to keep the parties in direct talks,” US Department of State spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
Israel’s freeze on building new settlements in the West Bank expired at midnight yesterday. The Israeli government has rejected international calls to completely halt settlement construction.
A Palestinian spokesman said the US had vowed to keep up the talks until the last moment.
Abbas met US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York on Friday night. Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Molcho, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s point man on the peace talks, were also in New York to aid compromise efforts, Israeli radio reported.
A senior Israeli official said on Friday that “there cannot be zero construction” in the West Bank. The official said Israel was willing to cut a compromise deal.
However, Abbas has rejected any compromise that does not guarantee a “complete halt” to settlement activity including in Jerusalem, a top aide, Nabil Abu Rudeina, told reporters.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly, the Palestinian leader praised US President Barack Obama’s efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians together and declared his “complete readiness to cooperate with the American efforts for the success of the political process.”
He said Palestinians face “dangerous problems that continue to push them into the corner of violence and conflict, wasting chance after chance to seriously address the issues faced by the people of the region and to attain comprehensive and genuine solutions.
“This is the result of the mentality of expansion and domination, which still controls the ideology and policies of Israel,” Abbas said.
Abbas added that Palestinians still want peace and declared: “Our wounded hands are still able to carry the olive branch from the rubble of the trees that the occupation uproots every day.”
US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman echoed a toughening US line toward the two sides.
“We are urging Israel to extend the moratorium,” Feltman said. “We also are making clear to the Palestinians we do not believe that it is in their interest to walk out of the talks.”
The international community considers Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including annexed East Jerusalem, to be illegal.
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