"It seems unlikely that we will be able to reach a peace deal with the Israeli government this year," an angry Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator, told the Middle East Times on Wednesday.

"Israel has to stop its military incursions into the West Bank and Gaza as well as abide by a mutual and simultaneous ceasefire with Hamas. The Israelis also have to stop the continued building and expansion of settlements in the West Bank," stated Erekat.

Erekat went on to explain that unless Israel abided by international law and agreements made with the Americans, he doubted very much if the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams could come to any agreement in regard to a comprehensive settlement this year as envisioned at the Annapolis peace talks in the United States last year.

"The Americans ought to speak up; that is their job. Let them be the judge of who is in breach of the agreements. There was a trilateral agreement reached between the Americans, we the Palestinians and the Israelis," Erekat said.

One of the major frustrations the Palestinians faced at Annapolis was the Israeli government's refusal to address core issues of the conflict which include the future borders of a Palestinian state, illegal settlement building on the West Bank, the status of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Instead, the Israelis exchanged niceties and chatted about generalities with the biggest commitment toward the core issues being a promise to establish sub-committees, which would look into these matters and meet with their Palestinian negotiating partners on a regular basis to discuss them.

Mark Regev, the spokesman from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office refused to be drawn into the issue saying that negotiations were at a sensitive stage.

"We don't want to openly discuss these issues with the media because we believe this could spoil the chances of the negotiations succeeding. But I believe that both the Palestinians and ourselves are working hard on these matters and it is possible to reach a peace settlement this year," he told the Middle East Times.

But Olmert was not as coy as his spokesman.

On Monday in Jerusalem while meeting with German Premier Angela Merkel, during which the latter mentioned her concern over the continued settlement building, he stated brazenly that Israel would keep building in parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem that Israel wants to keep in a future peace deal.

It is these comments, in contradiction with earlier comments where Olmert had told the Palestinian Authority that settlement building would be frozen, which angered Erekat.

They also prompted leading Israeli commentator and analyst Akiva Elder to comment in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz that Olmert appeared to say one thing in public while creating a completely different set of facts on the ground.

"Judging by his redeclarations, Olmert could have run tomorrow for the Meretz [left-wing Israeli and pro-peace] party's leadership. Judging by the behavior of his government in the territories, he could return to Likud [Israel's hawkish right-wing party]. But for Olmert, saying is one thing and doing is another," Elder acerbically stated.

And Olmert was true to his word on this particular occasion, after he approved the building of 750 new homes in the Givat Ze'ev settlement near Jerusalem. This announcement followed closely on the heels of the beginning of construction on 13,000 new housing units in the Har Homa settlement, also near Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government has refused to move any of the approximately 700 roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank that have strangled the West Bank's economy and disrupted the daily life of Palestinians there. Despite having promised to do so on numerous occasions.

Israeli peace activists also accused their government of deliberately sabotaging an imminent truce with Hamas when Israeli special forces assassinated five Palestinian activists in the West Bank a week ago, prompting a new barrage of rockets from Gaza.

While Erekat called for American intervention in the strongest possible terms, U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, expressed, once again, her "disappointment with the policy of expanding settlements and with Israel's evasion of its commitment to evacuate outposts and dismantle roadblocks."