**US Middle East envoy George Mitchell is due to arrive in the region to try to mediate the start of new peace talks.**Mr Mitchell will arrive in Israel on Thursday before travelling to the West Bank to meet the Palestinian leader on Friday, Palestinian officials say.
The Israeli government has given no official details about his visit.
It is Mr Mitchell’s first visit since a row broke out between Israel and the US over Israeli plans for new building in occupied East Jerusalem.
In March, during a visit by US vice President Joe Biden, it was revealed that the Israeli government was planning to build 1,600 apartments in the Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Ramat Shlomo.
Palestinians then walked away from the “proximity talks”, or indirect negotiations with the Israelis, which Mr Mitchell had been attempting to arrange.
The row put a strain on relations between Israel and the US, and Mr Mitchell’s planned visit in March was postponed.
Confidence boost
Mr Mitchell arrives with the row between Israel and the US apparently unresolved.
The Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed US officials on Thursday as saying that Mr Netanyahu had sent an official response to the US refusing to completely freeze building in East Jerusalem, as the Obama administration had requested.
But he did offer a series of measures to boost Palestinian confidence, such as easing the blockade on Gaza, releasing prisoners, freezing the building project in Ramat Shlomo for two years, and agreeing to discuss borders and the status of Jerusalem, the newspaper reported.
The report came a day after Martin Indyk, former US ambassador to Israel - said to be close to Mr Mitchell - wrote in the New York Times that Mr Netanyahu faced a choice between taking on the US president, or the right wing of his own coalition.
Mr Netanyahu has said that no other Israeli Prime Minister in the past 46 years has been asked to stop building in Jerusalem, which would be unacceptable to his political allies.
Imposed peace?
But Mr Indyk said Mr Netanyahu’s government had failed to notice a shift in US perceptions, which increasingly viewed progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as connected with the US’s wider security interests.
“With 200,000 American troops committed to two wars in the greater Middle East and the US president leading a major international effort to block Iran’s nuclear programme, resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a US strategic imperative,” he wrote.
There has been speculation in the past two weeks, based on unnamed senior US officials quoted in the Washington Post, that the Obama administration is considering proposing its own peace plan if the two sides fail to resume negotiations.
Talks between the two parties broke down after the Israeli campaign in the Gaza Strip at the end of 2008.
Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. It annexed the area in 1981 and sees it as its exclusive domain. Under international law the area is occupied territory and the international community does not recognise Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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