RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has strong backing on Thursday to quit peace talks after inconclusive US efforts to strike a compromise with Israel over settlements.
The Palestinian leader is to make a final decision on whether to stick with the US-led negotiations after meeting with the Arab League Follow-Up Committee for the peace process on Friday in the Libyan city of Sirte.
The past week has brought a flurry of reports that Washington has offered incentives to both sides in a bid to rescue the talks launched a month ago but imperiled by the expiration of a settlement moratorium on September 26.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given no indication he will revive the moratorium, and Abbas had repeatedly threatened to quit the talks if settlement activity continues.
Abbas had strong support from the Palestinian leadership and public opinion ahead of Friday’s meeting.
He is expected to seek the support of the Arab foreign ministers before making what he has described as a "very important speech" in which he would announce "historic decisions."
A senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said its position announced on Saturday — that there should be no negotiations as long as settlement building continued — had not changed.
Salih Rafat told AFP the Palestinians were hoping to "prepare for a plan whereby Arab and international parties can go to the United Nations or the Security Council to oppose Israel’s continuing settlement activity.
"Even if the United States is able to use its veto, there is nothing preventing us from demanding this," he told AFP.
A poll this week found that two-thirds of Palestinians support quitting the US-backed peace talks launched on September 2, and the militant Hamas movement — Abbas’s main domestic rival — has always adamantly opposed the talks.
Top Israeli ministers have meanwhile held a series of meetings this week but the government made a point of saying that the renewal of the moratorium was not on the agenda.
Israel’s security cabinet met on Wednesday to discuss measures "to enable apartment owners to reinforce their buildings against the threat of missile attacks or earthquakes," a government statement said.
Last week a report by an analyst with close ties to top US officials suggested that President Barack Obama had offered a raft of security and other incentives to Israel in return for a 60-day moratorium extension.
The writer, David Makovsky, is considered close to senior White House adviser Dennis Ross, with whom he has co-authored a book on Middle East peace efforts.
Neither Israeli nor US officials have commented on the report.
The reported proposal would face stiff opposition in Israel, according to an informal poll by an Israeli newspaper this week, which found that a majority of ministers in Netanyahu’s mostly right-wing cabinet oppose such a deal.
Netanyahu has insisted that "restrained" settlement construction would not interfere with the talks, which have the goal of reaching a final peace deal within a year, and has urged Abbas to stick with them.
Washington has meanwhile stepped up efforts to press Arab ministers to back continued peace talks.
"What we want out of the Arab League is continued support for direct negotiations that we have just launched," US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.
Crowley said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed how to obtain a "successful outcome" at the Arab League meeting when she spoke by phone Monday with Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh of Jordan, a sponsor of the peace talks.
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who toured the Middle East last week in a bid to save the fledgling talks, has also made calls of his own from Washington, Crowley said.
"We are intensively engaged. We are in touch with the Palestinians. We are in touch with the Israelis. We are in touch with countries that will be participating in the Arab League meeting on Friday," Crowley said.
"Our message is clear… We are at a critical stage in this process. We want to see the negotiations continue. We don’t want to see the parties step away from this process," he said.
But the Palestinians view the presence of 500,000 Israelis in more than 120 settlements in the occupied West Bank and annexed Arab east Jerusalem as a major threat to the viability of their future state and see the freezing of settlement construction as a key test of Israel’s seriousness about the talks.
