PALESTINIAN CABINET ministers in the West Bank yesterday expressed public optimism about United States envoy George Mitchell’s efforts to start peace talks with Israel, despite yawning differences between the two sides.

In separate meetings today with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Mr Mitchell will seek to persuade the two men to meet in New York on the fringes of next week’s UN General Assembly.

Mr Abbas is insisting on a total halt to Israeli settlement construction in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank before talks can begin.

Although the Obama administration and the European Union have expressed support for this demand, Mr Netanyahu said that 955 newly approved housing units and 2,500 units under construction should be excluded from the freeze, along with building in East Jerusalem.

According to EU sources quoted by the Israeli daily Haaretz, the focus of fresh negotiations could be on delineating a permanent West Bank-Israel border, based on the pre-occupation line of 1967.

A Ramallah-based Palestinian commentator said negotiations could deal profitably with “the 40 per cent of the West Bank not covered in settlements”.

This area would include Israeli-controlled, unconnected islands of territory around the Palestinian cities of Hebron in the south, Ramallah in the centre, and Nablus in the north. But the source argued that it would be impossible to draw a border without deciding the fate of Israeli settlements, which Palestinians want dismantled and Israel seeks to retain, and East Jerusalem, which Palestinians demand as the capital of their state and Mr Netanyahu refuses to discuss.

Framers of the “West Bank border first” formula may count on Mr Abbas being encouraged to negotiate by a US/EU commitment to recognise a Palestinian state within two years.

By coincidence, this timeframe dovetails with that set by Mr Abbas’ premier Salam Fayyad for declaring a de facto Palestinian state – whatever the status of negotiations – after an intensive period of building institutions and infrastructure.

As an indication that he is prepared for negotiations, Mr Abbas named veteran negotiator Saeb Erekat as head of the Palestinian team, engineered the election of allies to the governing bodies of the Fateh movement and appointed other allies to the Pales- tine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO’s) executive committee.

Mr Abbas has also paved the way for reconciliation between West Bank-based Fatah and Hamas, which rules Gaza, by approving the Egyptian plan for reunification which would bolster the Palestinian position and enable Mr Abbas to speak for all Palestinians.

Nevertheless, he cannot afford to negotiate on Mr Netanyahu’s terms.

Two Palestinian legislators told The Irish Times that Mr Abbas would lose whatever little credibility he retains if he does.

Dr Mustafa Barghouti, an independent who ran against Mr Abbas for president in 2005, said he “told me personally and said publicly that he will not go into negotiations unless settlements stop. There is no point in negotiating as long as Israel continues settlement.”

Dr Hanan Ashrawi, a new member of the PLO executive committee, observed that a settlement freeze “is very difficult because of the nature of the Israeli government. It rejects going back to the ’67 boundaries and is doing everything possible to undermine the peace process.”

She said, however, that Israel wants “to go through the motions” of negotiating while it continues to settle areas the Palestinians and the international community hold should be part of the Palestinian state.

Following a meeting with Mr Netanyahu on Sunday, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak called for a halt to settlement while Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki al-Faisal wrote in the New York Times that the kingdom would not accommodate the US by normalising relations with Israel until it withdraws from all occupied Arab territory, including Syria’s Golan Heights and Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms.