Although any official decision by the PA was postponed until consultations with Palestinian and the Arab leaders, Erekat criticized the US proposal to freeze constructions in the West Bank for three months on the grounds that it does not cover settlement activities in East al-Quds (Jerusalem), Ynetnews reported on Sunday.
In exchange for prolongation of the partial freeze in the occupied West Bank, the United States has offered a package of incentives to the Israeli government, which include additional sales of advanced F-35 jets and a guarantee to Tel Aviv that any resolutions against Israelis in the United Nations Security Council would be vetoed by Washington.
Erekat noted that the Palestinians "have a major problem in not including east Jerusalem" in the proposal.
On Friday, the Palestinian official said that if Israel failed to halt its construction activities in the West Bank by the end of November, the PA would ask the international community to recognize it as an independent state.
"If the United States won't force Israel to halt settlement construction this month, our next step will be to ask the Americans to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 border." Erekat asserted during a visit to Morocco.
The comments come as a new report by the Israeli group Peace Now indicates that Israelis have begun construction of 1,650 new settler units in the occupied Palestinian territories since the end of a partial freeze in Israeli settlement activities in September.
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