Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to restart US-brokered direct peace talks, but politicians on both sides warned yesterday that the process will be stillborn if the Jewish state fails to halt West Bank settlement building.

Amid widespread international support for the revived Middle East peace process, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the opportunity “must not be wasted” and Germany called for rapid results.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to embrace US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call last Friday for a Washington summit on September 2 to launch a targeted one year of negotiations.

His office noted that, contrary to Palestinian demands that talks be contingent on a temporary freeze on settlement in the occupied West Bank, Clinton explicitly said the talks must be held without preconditions.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has been calling for a year-and-a-half now for the start of such talks, so it’s a good thing that it’s going to happen,” his spokesman Mark Regev told AFP. “We welcome the opportunity to start now.”

Israeli public radio said preparations for the Washington summit would go into high gear in the days ahead, with Israeli and US officials liaising face-to-face and through video-conferencing.

Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog of the dovish Labour party, a member of the ruling coalition, said the summit would be a “moment of truth” for peace efforts, the internet news website Ynet reported.

But a leader of the left-wing opposition warned that the new initiative would peter out like past efforts unless Netanyahu and hardliners on whom his coalition leans pay more than lip-service to Palestinian aspirations. Public radio quoted Meretz party leader Haim Oron praising Washington for showing “initiative and asser­tive­ness” in nudging the two sides back to the negotiating table after a 20-month hiatus, but he added a caveat.

“Without (Israel) continuing a total freeze on settlement and a genuine readiness to withdraw to the international borders and an end to offering the Palestinians a caricature of a state it will be a waste of everybody’s time,” he said.

Palestine Liberation Organisation leaders voted shortly after midnight on Friday to accept the US invitation, but even as an aide to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas read out the decision, senior negotiator Saeb Erakat issued a warning.

“Unless the Israeli government stops settlement (activity) and stops demolishing homes in (Israeli-occupied) east Jerusalem, we shall not be able to continue the talks,” Erakat told reporters.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.