Abbas, Olmert to meet in Jerusalem

  Israeli and Palestinian leaders will meet in Jerusalem today to try to resolve a crisis over disputed land that has paralyzed recently renewed peace negotiations.

  The meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be their first since talks resumed earlier this month after seven years of violence. It comes just two weeks before U.S. President George W. Bush visits the region for the first time in his tenure, in an effort to build on momentum from a recent Mideast peace summit. The return to the negotiating table was officially announced at that summit in the United States last month.

  Palestinians have conditioned progress in the negotiations on Israel's canceling its plan to build 307 homes in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa. The expansion plan was announced immediately after the summit, and just days before negotiations officially began on Dec. 12.

  Israel insists the expansion does not violate its commitment not to build in West Bank settlements because the neighborhood is located in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed. Abbas and Olmert will meet today in an effort to resolve the issue, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday. Har Homa will be a top issue on the agenda, Erekat said. "We want to make 2009 a year of peace," Erekat said. "This (settlement expansion) kills the credibility of the peace process." The Palestinians want Israel to declare a cessation of all settlement expansion in the war-won territories of the West Bank and east Jerusalem.