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Relations have also soured over Israel's insistence that it had an "understanding" with George Bush's administration that allowed what it calls "natural growth" of the settlements to build housing for the children of settlers. Israel's intelligence minister, Dan Meridor, said today that the oral commitment qualified a written agreement with the Americans that required a complete halt to construction. "These understandings were a part of the agreement. Its written part and its oral part complement each other," he said.

Israel says it is free to build as it wants in Jerusalem because it has sovereignty over the entire city.

Barak is also expected to tell the Americans that the limited construction freeze must be tied to Palestinian peace efforts and moves by the rest of the Arab world to recognise Israel.Even while proposing a partial construction freeze, Barak is also authorising new building.Last week he acknowledged retroactively legalising 60 flats built without government approval near the Jewish settlement of Talmon.He has also given the go-ahead for the construction of scores of new homes in another settlement.

Barak told the New York Times that the settlement issue should not be treated in isolation and made the most important issue, but must be considered in the context of wider peace negotiations.Sources close to the US administration say that some Obama officials are also concerned at getting bogged down in a dispute over the settlements but for different reasons.They fear that the Israelis will use a protracted disagreement to slow down movement on a broader peace initiative. For that reason, some Obama advisers are pressing for several tracks to be pursued at once, including direct negotiationsnot dependent on each other at this stage.

Briefing foreign reporters last week, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, a stalwart of Netanyahu's Likud party, urged them to ask whether "Palestinians would accept that Jews will live among them, or whether it is going to be totally not allowed." "'Judenrein' is the term that was once used in other countries," Meridor said darkly, in remarks echoed the next day by another Likud minister who briefed journalists and diplomats.

"We believe that this is simply a new strategy by Israel to delay any real outcome," said Xavier Abu Eid, a Palestinian diplomat. "In past negotiations, I can assure you, Israel never tried to have Jews remain in the state of Palestine."

Challenged over the West Bank settlers' prospective status, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was quoted this week telling the Ideas Festival in Aspen that "Jews, to the extent they choose to stay and live in the state of Palestine, will enjoy those rights and certainly will not enjoy any less rights than Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the state of Israel."

Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and veteran Likud member, voiced misgivings about the use of "Judenrein" in the Palestine context: "I don't like to transfer the trappings of Nazis to others, even if they are our enemies." What was being branded as the Palestinians' bigotry, he said, could also be prudence about steps that might pre-judge disputes such as those over Palestinian refugees from Israel.