Lack of peace worse than "Iranian bomb": Barak

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak called the absence of a two-state peace deal with the Palestinians a more serious threat to the future of the Jewish state than any "Iranian bomb" as he prepared to hold talks with Egyptian officials on Wednesday over the peace process.

Barak, head of the left-of-center Labor party, the most moderate faction in Israel's rightist-dominated government, made his remarks in a lecture at a university, broadcast by Israeli television stations on Tuesday.

"In the absence of a solution" involving an Israeli and a Palestinian state, "any other situation -- and not an Iranian bomb or any other external threat -- is the most serious threat to Israel's future," Barak said in his lecture.

Israel, believed to be the region's sole nuclear power, has pushed for stiffer Western sanctions to press Iran to stop its atomic project, which Tehran insists is intended solely to produce electricity, but Israel sees as a threat to its existence.

Barak will travel to Egypt for talks with President Hosni Mubarak that are expected to focus on efforts to resume peace talks with the Palestinians.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been stalled since late 2008 when Israel launched a three-week assault on Gaza in which 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.

In the absence of a solution... any other situation -- and not an Iranian bomb or any other external threat -- is the most serious threat to Israel's future

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has insisted Israel completely stop settlement building in occupied land before the talks can resume, and has rejected a temporary construction freeze ordered by Israel in November as insufficient.

But a Palestinian official said Abbas was studying a proposal from U.S. peace envoy George Mitchell for the two sides to implement confidence-building measures to get peace talks started again.

Israel has also enlisted the help of Mubarak, head of the first Arab state to make peace with the Jewish state and a longstanding mediator in the region.

A senior Israeli official travelling with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Poland for the 65th anniversary of the liberation of a Holocaust death camp, said earlier "there could well be progress in the near future" on the diplomatic front.

The U.S. State Department said Tuesday that Mitchell has completed a series of meetings with major Middle East players and will return to the region in the "near future."

Spokesman Marc Toner, adding that Washington remained committed to "achieving our goal of comprehensive peace in the Middle East."

The United States has been trying for months to convince both sides to return to the negotiating table, but the Palestinians have refused to do so unless Israel halts all settlement growth in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories it occupied in 1967.

Washington initially backed that demand but has more recently pressed both sides to return to the talks immediately and praised a limited 10-month settlement slowdown enacted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November.