WASHINGTON, 23 June — Restarting the recent and fragile Palestinian-Israeli cease-fire to enable both parties to return to peace talks is no easy task.  But it is not impossible, says Nabil Shaath, a top-ranking member of the Palestinian Authority. Shaath, the highest-ranking PA member yet to confer with the Bush administration, spoke yesterday to members of the pro-Israeli Washington Institute, having just met with Condoleza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser, 

Shaath said the meeting “was better than my expectations. We’ve heard she has taken an unfair position, but I found her balanced and positive.” Shaath meets with Secretary of State Colin Powell today. Shaath, the PA’s minister of planning and international cooperation, said Rice spoke to him of her “total commitment to the Mitchell Report,” and he left her office feeling “the US is on board in the Mideast peace process.”

Asked what was the biggest mistake during the last seven years of peace talks, Shaath said it was the continued building of illegal Israeli settlements, which he called “a terrible mistake.” He said he “looks back with anger and self-criticism as to why, while we were negotiating ‘land for peace,’” the Israelis “were allowed” to continue to expand their illegal settlements.

“The settlements grew and created clusters which were called, ‘facts on the ground,’ that were strategically placed to divide Palestinian towns, Gaza and Egypt, even Palestinians on the Jordan River. They wanted to make it impossible for Palestinians to have an independent state,” he said.

“We should have had a real freeze on settlements, and halted this illegal Israeli expansion,” Shaath said, reminding his audience that “every explosion between Israeli and Palestinians has been because of illegal settlements.”  “Palestinians saw they were negotiating for disappearing land.”

Asked if permanent peace between Palestinians and Israelis was possible, Shaath said yes. “But not today, because we cannot resume negotiations as if nothing has happened,” he added.