Acting Palestinian Authority Chief says the so-called Peace process with Israel has completely failed and that the Palestinian people will have to seek an alternative to it.

Speaking at a televised speech in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday, Mahmoud Abbas blamed Israel for the collapse of the political process, saying that the Palestinian Authority has carried out “all its commitments and obligations,” while Israel continues to steal Palestinian land and build Jewish settlements.

The 74-year-old PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) leader accused Israel of taking dangerous steps in Jerusalem Al-Quds as well as trying to destroy some holy sites around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

He furthermore slammed Washington's embrace of the Israeli refusal to stop Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Abbas' remarks come on the heels of an intense but largely unsuccessful week of US diplomatic activity aimed at re-launching Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, during which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the acting Palestinian Authority Chief to come back to the negotiating table despite the lack of a freeze in Israeli settlement activities.

The US President, Barack Obama, set Middle East peace as a top priority at the start of his presidency in January, in contrast to his predecessor George W. Bush, who was criticized internationally for neglecting the long-running conflict. So far, however, the new administration has little to show for its efforts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whose right-leaning coalition includes pro-settler parties, has resisted Obama's calls for a total freeze on settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Tel Aviv is currently under intense pressure from the international community to halt the illegal construction of settlements in the West Bank. Israeli settlements are widely considered to be the main hurdle in the way of comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Under the 2002 Roadmap for Peace plan brokered by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia, Israel has to 'dismantle settlement outposts erected since 2001 and also freeze all settlement activities'.

MP/MTM/DT