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The Palestinian president appears to have called off indirect talks with Israel after the Israeli interior ministry announced it would build 1,600 new settler homes.
Mahmoud Abbas conveyed the decision to Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, by phone, Moussa told a news conference following an urgent meeting of delegates at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on Wednesday.
"The Palestinian president decided he will not enter into those negotiations now ... the Palestinian side is not ready to negotiate under the present circumstances," he said.
Israel's interior ministry, controlled by the ultra-Orthodox nationalist Shas party, announced on Tuesday that it would build 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, a religious Jewish settlement in an area of the occupied West Bank annexed to Jerusalem by Israel.
US condemnation
The announcement drew outrage from the Palestinians and condemnation from Joe Biden, the US vice-president who is on a visit to the region partly to throw his weight behind US-brokered "proximity" talks between the Israelis and Palestinians that were announced just on Sunday.
Biden reiterated on Wednesday that Israel's move "undermines" the trust needed for negotiations.
Israeli officials apologized for embarrassing Biden with the timing of the announcement and aides to Binyamin Netanyahu said the Israeli prime minister had been caught unawares by the project's announcement.
Eli Yishai, the Israeli interior minister from the Shas party, said there was "certainly no intention to provoke anyone, and certainly not to ... hurt the vice-president of the United States".
But he admitted that final approval for the project would take another few months and the timing of the announcement "should have been in another two or three weeks".
'Building will continue'
Ofir Gendelman, who was recently appointed spokesman to the Arab world for the Israeli prime minister's office, told Al Jazeera that the announcement was "first and foremost" an embarrassment to Netanyahu.
Netanyahu, however, has given no indication that he intends to reverse the construction decision.
'It's useless'
Tuesday's announcement of new Israeli illegal settlement building was the second in as many days on land the Palestinians claim for a future state.
It also approved the construction of 112 new apartments in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit on Monday as Biden began his four-day visit to the region and just a day after the Palestinians agreed to the indirect talks with Israel.
Moussa declared on Wednesday that "insults have reached a point that not a single Arab could accept".
"Our position now is we reject the Israeli message. Abu Mazen [Abbas] is not ready to enter talks; it's useless." he said, adding: "The talks have already stopped."
Moussa added that the Arab League's backing, given last week for four months of "proximity" talks, was now under reconsideration and Arab ministers would meet in a few days to make a decision.
An Arab League statement said "the proposed talks are irrelevant" because of "the failure to halt Israeli actions which are changing the population structure and geographic composition of the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, and to withdraw the announcement for the construction of hundreds of settlements in occupied Jerusalem".
PHOTO CAPTION
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) stands with U.S. envoy George Mitchell during their meeting in Jerusalem March 7, 2010.
Al-Jazeera
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