Palestinians Renew Threat to Seek UN Recognition

The Palestinian president says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not warn him against taking unilateral steps toward statehood when Israel has been building West Bank settlements on its own for decades.

President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that given Israel's history of setting up roadblocks and constructing Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, Mr. Netanyahu should not lecture the Palestinians about the possible step of asking the United Nations to recognize an independent Palestinian state.

Palestinian officials have previously mentioned the possibility of approaching the U.N. to secure recognition of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem - territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war - as their future state.

Mr. Netanyahu criticized the proposition Sunday, saying direct negotiations are the Palestinians' only option to achieve true peace with Israel. He said any attempt to circumvent talks by going to international bodies is "not realistic."

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are at the heart of the current crisis over peace talks restarted last month. An Israeli monitoring group says settlers have begun building more than 600 homes since a partial construction freeze expired last month.

The Palestinians insist they will not negotiate while settlement building continues and have recently suggested they would seek other solutions if the talks fail.

Israeli-Palestinian friction surfaced again Monday when an Israeli rights group published photos that appear to show Israeli soldiers posing with Palestinian detainees and vandalizing homes.

Breaking the Silence released the images on its page on the social networking site Facebook.

One image shows a soldier pointing his assault rifle at a blindfolded man. Another shows a soldier spray-painting the phrase "Back Soon" in Hebrew on the wall of a Palestinian home. The photos are believed to have been taken during Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.

The Israeli military says it is unfortunate the group published the photos online rather than bringing them directly to the army for investigation. Breaking the Silence is an organization of Israeli veterans that seek to expose the public to military abuses of Palestinians.

The Israeli military launched its offensive against Hamas to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets into Israel. The fighting killed some 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.