Palestinians consider backing full boycott of Israel if talks fail

US efforts to break the impasse in Middle East peace talks have brought no agreement on the major issues dividing the two sides, and the Palestinians are making contingency plans for an expected failure of the negotiations, a senior Palestinian official said.

Nabil Shaath, head of international relations of the West Bank’s ruling Fatah movement, said the Palestinians were considering “going the South African way” and supporting a full boycott of Israel, in addition resuming their push for recognition in international bodies, including the International Criminal Court.

“We are really at odds with most of the Israeli demands that somehow or another have been accepted by the Americans,” Mr Shaath said on Tuesday, a few hours after Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, met Barack Obama, US president, and John Kerry, secretary of state, in Washington on Monday.

He said that the Palestinians did not agree with what he described as Israeli proposals endorsed by the US, on issues relating to the status of Jerusalem, refugees, borders and an Israeli demand for recognition of the country as a Jewish state.

“The Americans have not played a real honest broker role”, Mr Shaath said, contrasting what he described as the Obama administration’s willingness to support Israeli negotiating demands in the talks with tougher stands taken by former US presidents George Bush Sr and Bill Clinton in past peace rounds. “They are much closer to what they think would go for the Israelis.”

Mr Shaath said that with a month and a half to go until the talks’ end of April deadline, “we are farther away than we ever were” in past peace negotiations held in Annapolis, Taba and Camp David.

He said that a failure of the talks would leave the Palestinians with “two roads to traverse”, including calling for a boycott of Israel. Mr Abbas’ official stance now is to support a boycott of Jewish settlements, rather than a blanket boycott of Israel, a move that could invite Israelis to retaliate by withholding tax revenues or work permits from the Palestinians.

“If everything falls apart, it’s the only logical thing to do,” he said of the boycott. “I know it’s going to cost us, but we are not going back to armed struggle, so the only thing to do would be a boycott and an international campaign.”

Mr Shaath said that the Palestinians would seek an international forum for negotiations next time, as seen in the conflicts in Iran and Syria, with the US involved alongside the Europeans and other countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The remarks are the latest of several signs from Palestinian and Israeli officials that they are positioning themselves for the talks’ failure.

Mr Kerry last week told a Congressional hearing that mistrust between the two sides was higher than ever, although he said a peace deal was still possible.

Tzipi Livni, the chief Israeli negotiator in the talks, said at a conference on Tuesday that Israel might withhold the release of a fourth and final group of 26 Palestinian prisoners, planned for March 29, if it had not secured agreement with the Palestinians on a framework for final status peace talks by then.

The group is expected to include Arab residents of Israel and East Jerusalem convicted of violent crimes, a notion which has angered some Israelis.

Mr Shaath said that if Israel reneged on the release, the Palestinians would apply for membership in international bodies where it could seek legal redress for its actions in the occupied territories, moves it has long planned, but withheld after facing pressure from the US and Israel.

“That would be a breach of the only agreement we made – and that means we would go immediately to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.”

According to Palestinian officials, since talks were launched in July 56 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 900 injured by Israeli troops and security forces, and Israel has begun work on more than 10,500 housing units in Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands.