Fatah official says two-state solution is history

The Palestinian Authority has concluded that the peace process based on a two-state solution has failed, a senior Fatah official said on Tuesday. His statement came as PA officials repeated their rejection of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's proposal to extend the settlement construction moratorium if the Palestinian leadership recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.

But the US sought [desperately] to keep talks going, and called on the Palestinians to present their own counter-proposal to keep things on track. Mahmoud Aloul, member of the Fatah Central Committee, said that "Israel's racist policies… were meant to undermine the peace process."

"The Palestinian Authority made every effort to avoid reaching this conclusion, but Israeli racist policies led to the failure of the peace process," he added. Aloul accused the US Administration of failing to exert pressure on Israel to alter its policies and halt settlement construction. "The Americans left us no choice but to stop the peace negotiations," he said. The Palestinian leadership has briefed the Arab leaders on the difficult situation and we have asked them to start taking real measures on the ground.

PLO negotiators Saeb Erekat and Nabil Shaath also reiterated their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Another PLO official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, accused Netanyahu of seeking to destroy the image of President Barack Hussein Obama in the Middle East by raising such a demand.