Israel, Palestinians dig in ahead of Obama summit

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Tuesday will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time since taking office in March, made clear through a spokesman he would defend Jewish settlement in the West Bank in the face of demands from Abbas - and from Obama - for a halt to building.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, however, said Netanyahu viewed a settlement freeze as a "bizarre" precondition and accused Abbas of shirking his own commitments under the 2003 US-backed "road map" to peace. Among these were a failure to disband Palestinian militant groups, Ayalon said.

Netanyahu has said he was ready to negotiate but not to pick up where talks, sponsored by Obama's predecessor George W. Bush, left off last year under the previous government of Ehud Olmert.

Without a change in Palestinian positions on refugees and the status of Jerusalem, Israel would rather have an "interim process" to bolster security and prosperity, Ayalon said.

Earlier on Monday, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) called on President Mahmoud Abbas not to respond to the American pressure to hold such a meeting "as long as the Israeli government had not responded to Palestinian demands to completely halt building settlements"; Kazinform cites Arab News. See www.arabnews.com for full version.