Palestinian peace negotiations could possibly resume without a complete freeze in Israeli building of Jewish settlements, a senior US official suggested Thursday. The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said it was more important that the scope of a settlement freeze was acceptable to the Israelis and the Palestinians than to the United States. The Obama administration hopes next month to announce a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which have been stalled since December, but the pieces have not yet fallen into place, diplomats and US officials said. The Obama administration has taken the public stance that Israel must halt all settlement activity, including so-called “natural growth” under which new homes are built within existing enclaves to accommodate growing settler families. While saying this was still Washington's position, the official suggested the US would not stand in the way if the two sides could agree on something short of that. “Are we going to argue, if at some point the parties say, ‘you know, this is not everything that we hope for but it's enough?” asked the US official.
