The foreign ministers dropped an earlier reference stating explicitly that East Jerusalem should be the capital of a Palestinian state.

Israeli claims of sovereignty over Jerusalem are not recognised internationally, and East Jerusalem is considered to be occupied territory.

Palestinians hope to establish the capital of their future state in East Jerusalem.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday the Palestinians had decided to turn to the U.N. Security Council to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

Separately, the negotiator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the Obama administration is “totally on board” with a plan by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to create a state on the pre-1967 borders within two years.

“Overall, Huckabee’s visit should be seen in the larger context of US-Israeli relations, which many people feel are going in the wrong direction, and feel that Obama is responsible for that,” Gilboa said. “Huckabee has the ability to show Obama that he doesn’t have bipartisan support for his policies toward Israel, and that if he wants to depart from tradition, he’s going to be opposed.”

Gershon Salomon said that this year he was hoping for hundreds to protest the “US pressure to stop settlement activity, and east Jerusalem construction in particular, and also the apparent weakness of our leaders,” which he said he feared would lead to a “division of Jerusalem and the loss of the Temple Mount.”

He said flyers about the protest contained the message: “Go to the Bible to find out to whom this land belongs!”

The report in the UK paper quoted unnamed diplomats as saying Israel was prepared to offer concessions on the formation of a Palestinian state as well as on its settlement policy and “issues” with Arab neighbors, in exchange for international backing for an Israeli operation in Iran.

“Israel has chosen to place the Iranian threat over its settlements,” one senior European diplomat said.