CAIRO, July 27 (RIA Novosti) - Arab countries see no reason to start normalizing relations with Israel while it continues to build illegal settlements on occupied land, Arab League head Amr Moussa said on Monday.
"There will be no Arab steps until Israel stops its settlement building policy," he said after meeting with U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell.
"The Arabs will not take any step of normalization as a sacrifice for Israel."
Moussa said Israel had failed to justify the hopes of the international Quartet of Middle East mediators, adding that any international conference on the Middle East peace process would also depend on Israel.
"Whether the conference goes ahead - either in the narrow or expanded format - depends on progress in the Israeli position, in particular insofar as concerns the building of settlements," he said.
The Arab League head said he was satisfied with U.S. President Barack Obama's efforts in the Middle East.
"The U.S. administration is taking efforts to achieve peace in the present situation," he said, noting Washington's efforts to resume the peace process on the Syrian-Israeli and Lebanese-Israeli tracks.
Mitchell's stop in Egypt comes after visits to Israel and Syria. He is to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank before returning to Israel for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
He said earlier he planned to meet many Arab leaders "to encourage them to take genuine steps toward normalization" of ties with Israel.
The number of Jewish settlers living in the West Bank has risen 2.3% since the start of the year to 304,569, Israel's Haaretz daily said earlier on Monday, citing a military report.
The Israel Defense Forces Civil Administration report covering the first half of 2009 said the growth is mainly in religious communities, including ultra-Orthodox settlements.
Haaretz said growth rates tend to rise in the second half of the year, as families move during the summer months.
Under the internationally-agreed roadmap for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Israel is obliged to freeze all settlement construction activity and remove unauthorized outposts built since 2001. The country has pledged to destroy at least 22 of the 121 settlements in the West Bank.
The issue of Jewish outposts has become the main obstacle to reviving peace talks with the Palestinians, and a sticking point in relations with the United States, Israel's main strategic ally, which has called for an end to settlement expansion.
Despite international pressure for a settlement freeze, construction continues under what Israel calls "natural growth."
