Palestinians hail quartet settlement freeze call

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel must comply with the Middle East Quartet's call on Friday to halt settlement activity as a means to clear the way for peace negotiations, whereas Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the Quartet's call harms the chances of peace.

"The statement by the Quartet in which it urges Israel to freeze settlement activity, including natural growth, is very important but what is more important is that Israel should comply so that the peace process can restart," Abbas said in a statement.

"The settlement issue is the essence of the problem," he added.

Monitoring system

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat called for the Quartet of diplomatic players to install a monitoring system to ensure that Israel halts all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem.

He accused the right wing-dominated government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "continuing to trick the international community by saying it has stopped its invitations for tenders even as settlement activity continues on the ground."

Israel's Lieberman, meanwhile, said that the Middle East Quartet's call on setting a 2012 target for a peace deal and for a halt to Jewish settlement activity harms the chances of a settlement.

"Peace cannot be imposed artificially and with an unrealistic calendar," Lieberman said after the Quartet set the ambitious target of 2012 for a final deal with the Palestinians and urged Israel to freeze settlement activity.

"This type of statement only harms the possibilities of reaching an accord because it gives to the Palestinians the wrong impression that by failing to negotiate directly they will achieve their goals by using all sorts of pretexts," he said in an address to the Jewish community in Brussels.

"It is now the Palestinians' turn to prove they are interested in negotiating," Lieberman said, according to his office.

After a meeting in Moscow earlier, the Quartet made up of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States issued a statement calling for a full Israeli settlement freeze.

The statement by the Quartet in which it urges Israel to freeze settlement activity, including natural growth, is very important but what is more important is that Israel should comply so that the peace process can restart

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

Clashes in Hebron

In November, Netanyahu announced a 10-month moratorium in issuing permits for new settler homes, but it excludes annexed Arab east Jerusalem and does not apply to the construction of homes already authorized or to public buildings.

Israel has also said the moratorium "provided for exceptions in cases of safety problems for infrastructure projects started before the freeze," and on March 8 announced it had given the green light for 112 new homes in a West Bank settlement.

Palestinians, in the meantime, clashed with Israeli security forces in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday in the latest such incident in the increasingly tense region.

About 300 protesters chanted "Thousands of martyrs march to Jerusalem" and several hurled rocks at security forces who responded with tear gas.

Police were also on high alert in Jerusalem where authorities again prevented men under 50 from attending Friday prayers at the flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque compound.

An already charged atmosphere intensified this week as a rebuilt 17th-century synagogue was opened in the Jewish quarter of the Old City, a few hundred meters (yards) from the compound.

This type of statement only harms the possibilities of reaching an accord because it gives to the Palestinians the wrong impression that by failing to negotiate directly they will achieve their goals by using all sorts of pretexts

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman