Netanyahu repeated his conditions for a settlement ahead of Thursday's summit in Washington with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas for the first direct negotiations since talks collapsed in December 2008.

An agreement would have to be based "first of all on recognition of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people, an end to the conflict and an end to further demands on Israel," Netanyahu said.

The Palestinians, who broke off the talks nearly two years ago after Israel staged a bloody offensive into the Gaza Strip, object to endorsing Israel as being essentially Jewish.

Such a move would imply they are dropping their claim that refugees who fled or were expelled when Israel was created in 1948, and their descendants, should be able to reclaim former homes now within Israel.

Netanyahu told reporters that he would also seek "real security arrangements on the ground" to prevent a recurrence in the West Bank of events that took place in the Gaza Strip after Israel pulled out in 2005 and in south Lebanon after the withdrawal in 2000.

The Islamist Hamas seized control in Gaza and used the coastal strip as a launching pad for attacks into Israel, and Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah fought a bloody war against Israel in 2006.

Netanyahu will personally lead the talks and hopes to meet Abbas every two weeks, a senior Israeli official said on Friday.

Key to the discussions will be the future of a partial Israeli moratorium on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, which expires on September 26.

Netanyahu faces strong pressure at home not to renew the freeze on new construction permits, but the Palestinians say Israel must chose between settlements and peace.

Abbas said on Palestinian television on Sunday Israel would be to blame if the talks fail over the settlements issue.

"I have to say, and we told all parties including the United States before accepting renewed talks, that the Israeli government will bear sole responsibility of the risk of failure of the talks if settlement activities continue in Palestinian territories occupied in 1967," he said.

"We support the need of Israel and our people for security, but this cannot be a pretext to justify settlement activities and taking away other people's land and rights."

Settlements in the West Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem are considered illegal by the international community.

Meanwhile Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak held talks in Amman on Sunday with King Abdullah II ahead of the Washington summit, to which the Jordanian monarch and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have also been invited.

Abdullah told Barak the negotiations "should be dealt with in a serious way," and that Middle East peace was "strategic" for the region and the world, the palace said.

In an interview with Israeli public television on Saturday, Abdullah called for steady progress in the negotiations to prevent extremism from returning to centre stage.

"I don't think we should put a one-year target date," he told Channel One TV. "Why wait for one year? The longer we wait, the more we give people a chance to create violence."

A senior Jordanian official said his country and Egypt, the only two Arab states to have peace treaties with Israel, are cautious about the outcome of the talks "because historically such meetings have led to no success."

Meanwhile the spiritual head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party in Israel's ruling coalition has damned Abbas and his people ahead of the Washington summit, sparking an angry Palestinian reaction.

"May all the nasty people who hate Israel, like Abu Mazen (Abbas), vanish from our world," Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said in a sermon on Saturday. "May God strike them down with the plague along with all the nasty Palestinians who persecute Israel."

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat condemned the statement as "an incitement to genocide," and urged the Israeli government "to do more about peace and stop spreading hatred."

Netanyahu's office said in a statement that Yosef's comments "do not reflect the views of Benjamin Netanyahu or of his government" which seeks a peace settlement with the Palestinians.

related report
Rabbi damns Palestinians ahead of Washington summit
The spiritual head of a religious party in Israel's ruling coalition has damned Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and his people ahead of the Washington summit, stirring an angry reaction on Sunday.

"May all the nasty people who hate Israel, like Abu Mazen (Abbas), vanish from our world," said Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, in his weekly sermon on Saturday night.

"May God strike them down with the plague along with all the nasty Palestinians who persecute Israel," he said, before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas meet in Washington to resume direct peace talks.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat condemned the remarks as "an incitement to genocide," and urged the Israeli government "to do more about peace and stop spreading hatred."

"The spiritual leader of Shas is literally calling for a genocide against Palestinians, and there seems to be no response from the Israeli government," he said in a statement.

"He is particularly calling for the assassination of President Abbas who within a few days will be sitting face to face with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Is this how the Israeli government prepares its public for a peace agreement?"

In the run-up to the Wednesday-Thursday summit in Washington, Erakat called on the international community "to condemn incitement to genocide by public figures in Israel."

Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib pointed out that Shas was not some fringe opposition group but a partner in Netanyahu's centre-right coalition government.

"This is racist incitement of a spiritual leader of a coalition member party," Khatib said in a statement. "These hateful remarks cannot be dismissed as politically insignificant."

Netanyahu's office dismissed the remarks in a statement that said the government wants peace with the Palestinians.

Yosef's comments "do not reflect the views of Benjamin Netanyahu or of his government" which seeks a peace settlement with the Palestinians, it said.

According to Shas MP Nissim Zeev, whose party has 11 seats in the 120-member parliament, Yosef was trying to express the wish taken from Jewish holy texts that God would eliminate the enemies of Israel to clear the way for peace.

In the past, Shas's powerful mentor, a Baghdad-born rabbi now in his late 80s, has referred to Arabs and Palestinians as "snakes" and "vipers" who were "swarming like ants."

He has made similar remarks about non-observant Jews, including former prime minister Ariel Sharon, whom he called "cruel" and "evil" for his plan to evict settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

In the late 1980s, however, Yosef came out in support of a territorial compromise with the Palestinians.

related report
Jordan sees speed as key to success of Mideast peace talks
Jordan's King Abdullah II, who met Israel's defence minister on Sunday, said success in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will depend on speedy progress before the status quo allows extremism to return to centre stage.

"I don't think we should put a one-year target date," Abdullah said in an interview with Israel's public Channel One TV late on Saturday ahead of the direct talks being relaunched in Washington this week.

"I believe words coming out of the United States is within one year (for a two-state settlement). Why wait for one year? The longer we wait, the more we give people a chance to create violence," he said.

After the opening in Washington on Wednesday, attended by Abdullah and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas are to launch direct talks the following day.

"It is the willingness of the leaders on the second day to really solve this problem which is really going to be the deciding factor of how the Middle East is going to shape itself over the next 10 years," said Abdullah, who left on Sunday for London en route to Washington.

"The king will discuss with US President Barack Obama the need for the talks to help end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in line with a two-state solution as well as a regional context leading to a just and comprehensive peace," the palace said.

A senior Jordanian official, meanwhile, said his country and Egypt, the only two Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel, are "cautiously optimistic, because historically such meetings have led to no success."

On Netanyahu, the official said the Israeli leader "does not want to commit to anything but he says he is in a hurry and would like to finalise it all in six months."

Jordan's advice to Abbas was: "Try to be positive. Don't say 'no,' you can say 'yes, but'."

On Sunday, Abdullah told visiting Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak that the negotiations "should be dealt with in a serious way," the palace said. Middle East peace was "of strategic interest for the region and the world."

The king, in the television interview, stressed that Israel's future in the region was at stake in the process being launched in the US capital after several past failures.

"The bigger picture for the Israeli people is Israel's integration in the Arab-Islamic world. That's the prize. But we need to start it in Washington."

Abdullah warned that the military dynamics in the Middle East had changed, with the Jewish state waging short wars on average every two years in the absence of a settlement with the Palestinians.

"Today the dynamics have changed. Conflict with Israel today is not necessarily to win against Israel but to survive. Therefore that opens the dynamics to a completely different threat towards Israel," he said.

"Is it going to be fortress Israel ... or are we going to have the courage to break down those walls and bring peoples together and eventually bring full security to the Israeli people?" he asked.

"But if the Israelis and Palestinians are sitting at the table and solving their problems, then all of those elements that are trying to work for the destruction of Israel will have no longer a justification.

"What's happening in Washington is not just about the Israelis and Palestinians. It's about Israel's future with the Arabs and Israel's future with the Muslim world."

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