Israeli media said the meeting was to focus on the issue of a 60-day extension of the settlement freeze in exchange for a US deal offering security and other guarantees, details of which were leaked by a US analyst last week.

Army radio had said Netanyahu was to discuss the reported US proposal in a bid to win over hardline opponents within the group of seven ministers, which includes leaders of the parties in his largely right-wing coalition.

"Netanyahu is looking for a way out," the radio's political commentator said. "On one hand, he is against a renewal of the freeze because he doesn't want to give in to Palestinian demands, but on the other hand, he also wants to avoid a direct confrontation with the US administration."

Asked for details about Tuesday's talks, Netanyahu's office issued a statement saying ministers had discussed global hostility toward Israel after its troops stormed a Gaza-bound aid boat that was trying to run the Israeli blockade in May, killing nine Turkish activists.

"Contrary to various media reports ... the Forum of Seven did not hold a debate on the issue of efforts to allow the continuation of peace talks," it said.

It said ministers heard reports on the work of a United Nations inquiry into the maritime incident and Israel's measures to respond to what the statement called a "campaign of delegitimisation aimed at preventing the state of Israel from defending itself."

Netanyahu was on Wednesday to convene his 15-member security cabinet, a government official said, but he refused to disclose the agenda.

The Yediot Aharonot daily published a poll of ministers on Monday suggesting that four of the seven members of Netanyahu's inner circle oppose a reimposition of the freeze, as do eight of the 15 security cabinet ministers.

Netanyahu had been expected to use both forums to try to achieve some kind of compromise over the settlements ahead of a key Arab summit in Libya later this week at which the Palestinians were expected to formalise a decision to bolt the peace talks.

"Netanyahu will try to persuade the ministers to accept the guarantees the American administration has offered Israel in exchange for extending the construction freeze," Haaretz newspaper said.

"The prime minister is interested in passing a decision on the matter before an Arab League committee meets in Libya on Friday to deliver its verdict on whether peace negotiations should continue," it added.

Direct peace talks with the Palestinians, begun just a month ago, face collapse over Israel's refusal to renew the freeze, which expired on September 26.

Renewing the ban on building new settler homes in the occupied West Bank appears to be key to salvaging peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, who say they will walk out if construction continues.

Fearing that Netanyahu and his ministers could waver, settler leaders on Tuesday appealed to them to stand firm.

"I hope and pray that the government will not capitulate and the ministers honour their promises that the freeze will come to an end after 10 months," Moshe Rosenbaum, head of the Beit El settlement council, told the Ynet news site.

The Palestinian leadership has urged president Mahmud Abbas to turn his back on the negotiations if Israel does not renew the freeze. Abbas will look for backing from Arab foreign ministers for such a move when he meets them in Libya on Friday.

earlier related report
YouTube: Fury as Israel soldier dances round woman prisoner
Jerusalem (AFP) Oct 5, 2010 - A grainy video of a male Israeli soldier bellydancing around a bound and blindfolded female prisoner which went viral overnight, on Tuesday provoked a furious response from the Palestinians.

The clip, which came to light after it was screened on Israel's private Channel 10 television late on Monday, shows a soldier gyrating to rhythmic drumbeat of an Arabic track as the woman, who is wearing a headscarf, huddles against a wall, her hands bound in front of her and her eyes bound with a white cloth.

The soldier, who is wearing sunglasses and grinning broadly, repeatedly brushes up close to the woman who has a Hebrew speech bubble coming out of her mouth reading "Allahu Akbar" -- Arabic for "God is greatest."

Crudely captioned "israeli soldier catch arab terrorist (he dance on haer) funny," the clip lasts just over a minute.

The video was immediately slammed by the Palestinian Authority as "deeply offensive to the dignity of women."

"This is a disgusting illustration of the sick mentality of the occupier. This is not an isolated incident," said a strongly-worded statement from the office of Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad.

The Islamist Hamas movement which rules Gaza also denounced the footage, with spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri saying the soldier's behaviour "reflects the racism and the absence of morals among the occupation soldiers."

The Israeli army insisted it was an "isolated" incident, but said the military police had opened an investigation into the video clip.

"The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) denounces actions such as those depicted in the videos," it said referring to an unspecified number of videoclips.

"The videos are isolated cases that do not represent the IDF as a whole."

The statement said that from now on, a military police investigation would become "standard practice in cases in which similar behaviour is alleged."

Exposure of the video came just seven weeks after an Israeli soldier sparked widespread outrage by posting pictures of herself smiling and larking around next to blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian prisoners.

The army denounced the pictures as "shameful," while the Palestinian Authority described them as humiliating, but the former soldier, Eden Abergil, could not understand why the images had caused such offence.

Rights groups said at the time that photographs were clear evidence of a culture within the military that treated Palestinians as objects rather than human beings -- a sentiment which was echoed by Fayyad's office on Tuesday.

"With the advent of easy-to-use media like YouTube, the truth is coming to light about a culture of humiliation of the Palestinians," it said.

"The soldiers are fed by a wider Israeli policy that behaves (as if it were) above the law and human rights values."

Israeli blogger Dimi Reider, who first exposed the Eden Abergil photographs in August, said the video flew in the face of Israel's claims to have one of the most moral armies in the world.

"This video finally debunks one of the most persistent Israeli myths -- that ours is the only occupying army in history that does not sexually abuse the women of the occupied nation," he wrote in his blog, Dimi's notes.

"Second, it's about as stark proof as it gets that the IDF cannot and should not monitor itself (if it could, the soldiers would be in prison, de-ranked and de-mobbed before the video even hit the web)," he said.

The YouTube video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxFlmXbzY3I

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