Mideast may flare up if peace talks fail - Shimon Peres

The Middle East could erupt into violence if the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapse, Israel's President Shimon Peres warned on Monday. "It is crucial that these negotiations will be completed successfully," Peres said after meeting Romanian President Traian Basescu, the Voice of Russia reports.

"A failure to do so would be tragic for the Middle East. The situation in the Middle East can flare up overnight if the talks fail."

Israel and the Palestinians embarked upon a nine-month track of direct negotiations at the urging of US Secretary of State John Kerry, at the end of July.

But although the April deadline is looming, the talks appear to have made little visible progress. Currently, Kerry's main focus is trying to get the sides to agree on a framework to guide the negotiations forward in the coming months.

Basescu told the Israeli president it was a "crucial moment" in the talks.

"My main message is ratify the Kerry initiative and seize the opportunity at a time when the Middle East is on fire," he said.

"We honestly believe that everybody understands that this moment must be captured and used for the betterment of the nations," he said, acknowledging "the extreme difficulties of these negotiations."

The two men also discussed Iran's nuclear programme and bilateral relations between Israel and Romania.

Attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and Palestinian property in the West Bank has gone up four times in the last eight years, that is according to an ongoing monitoring mission by the UN’s Humanitarian Affairs office. Some 2,100 attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have occurred since 2006, and annual attacks have shot up from 115 in 2006 to almost 400 in 2013, according to the biweekly reports.

Meanwhile, the damage to Israeli property or casualties to settlers stood at 98 in 2013.

According to OCHA figures, 10 Palestinians were killed by settlers, and 29 settlers were killed by Palestinians in the past eight years. More than 1,700 Palestinians were injured by settlers or by troops in clashes, while 324 settlers and 37 soldiers were hurt by Palestinians in confrontations. The number of Palestinians displaced doubled from 192 buildings in 2012 to 393 in 2013 and 279 people displaced in 2012 to 575 in 2013.

Last week, a stone throwing clash happened between the Palestinians and Israeli troops in a village of Qusra, after olive trees were uprooted on settlers land from the Esh Kodesh settlement.

Last Wednesday, a mosque was defaced in the area with the words "Arabs out" and "Revenge for blood spilled in Qusra," written in Hebrew on the walls.

The Palestinians believe that there is a campaign dubbed "price tag" launched among the settlers, under which committing acts of violence would allow to get control of the West Bank, believing that the Israeli soldiers do very little to stop it. The campaign began in 2008, 3 years after Israel dismantled settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank, according to AP reports.

Although Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, there are approximately 500,000 Jewish settlers living there.But, according to Israeli military correspondent for the Haaretz newspaper, Amos Harel, many young soldiers believe that their mission is to protect Jewish settlers.

"When extreme fringes among the settlers commit violence against the Palestinians, few soldiers can internalize this and change their behavior," he wrote.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that the police have formed special units to deal with the "price tag" attacks focusing on surveillance, intelligence gathering and undercover operations but despite this the UN figures show a steady rise in the number of attacks on Palestinians by settlers.