U.S. President Barack Obama wants Israel and the Palestinians to restart stalled peace talks as soon as possible and urged both sides and the Arab states to take steps to advance the process, the White House said on Thursday.

"Obama spoke by phone to Jordan's King Abdullah and agreed on the need to move forward on Middle East peace," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

The president has promised sustained engagement in the elusive quest for an Israeli-Palestian peace deal but has had trouble getting the sides to make conciliatory gestures.

Also Thursday, a poll was released that stated that only 12 percent of Israelis believe U.S. President Barack Obama's policies are supportive of Israel.

The poll was conducted jointly by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Police and Survey Research and the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It was conducted between August 9 and 15.

The poll also found that 64 per cent of Palestinians still feel Obama's policy is more supportive of Israel, while 40 per cent of Israelis think it is more support of the Palestinians.

The poll's margin of error was 3 per cent.

On Tuesday Obama said on he saw encouraging signs of a softening of Israel's resistance to his call for a freeze on settlement-building in the occupied West Bank.

"There has been movement in the right direction," Obama said when asked about the latest development after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the White House.

The two leaders, meeting for the third time in as many months, talked about how to jump-start the stalled Middle East peace process, a top foreign policy priority for Obama.