OTTAWA — Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon on Friday praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas for launching direct peace talks this week.

“Canada commends prime minister Netanyahu and president Abbas on taking this important first step toward a peace agreement,” Cannon said in a statement

“We also welcome the parties’ commitment to meet at regular intervals over the course of the next year,” he added, in reference to a pledge by both sides to meet as frequently as every two weeks for ongoing talks.

The two leaders traveled to Washington this week for their first direct talks since December 2008, amid a new US push to achieve a peace deal in a year.

As the talks started, militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for a shooting attack in the West Bank that killed four Israeli settlers.

Both Israel and the Palestinian leadership condemned the attack, and a second shooting attack, also in the West Bank, and said they would not succeed in halting negotiations.

Cannon said Canada urged “the parties to remain steadfast in their efforts to keep negotiations on track toward peace, despite the obstacles which opponents of this process may put in their way.

A top European official was accused of antisemitism tonight after declaring that there was little point in engaging in rational argument with Jews and suggesting that the latest Middle East peace talks were doomed because of the power of the Jewish lobby in Washington.

Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for trade, and a former Belgian foreign minister, sparked outrage after voicing his scepticism about the prospects for the negotiations which opened in the US this week. He told a Belgian radio station that most Jews always believed they were right, and questioned the point of talking to them about the Middle East.

De Gucht, who negotiates for Europe on trade with the rest of the world, and is one of the most powerful officials in Brussels, was forced today to issue a statement declaring that the views he expressed were personal.

“Don’t underestimate the opinion … of the average Jew outside Israel,” he told the radio station. “There is indeed a belief – it’s difficult to describe it otherwise – among most Jews that they are right. And a belief is something that’s difficult to counter with rational arguments. And it’s not so much whether these are religious Jews or not. Lay Jews also share the same belief that they are right. So it is not easy to have, even with moderate Jews, a rational discussion about what is actually happening in the Middle East.”

Explaining why he thought the peace talks were probably doomed, he added: “Do not underestimate the Jewish lobby on Capitol Hill. That is the best organised lobby, you shouldn’t underestimate the grip it has on American politics – no matter whether it’s Republicans or Democrats.”

Jewish leaders were incandescent. “This is part of a dangerous trend of incitement against Jews and Israel in Europe that needs to be stamped out immediately,” said Moshe Kantor, the head of the European Jewish Congress. “What sort of environment allows such remarks to be made openly by a senior politician? Once again we hear outrageous antisemitism from a senior European official. The libel of Jewish power is apparently acceptable at the highest levels of the EU.”

Officials in Brussels stressed the remarks did not represent EU views or policies. De Gucht was forced to issue a statement clarifying his remarks.

“I gave an interview … I gave my personal point of view,” he said. “I regret that the comments that I made have been interpreted in a sense that I did not intend.

“I did not mean in any possible way to cause offence or stigmatise the Jewish community. I want to make clear that antisemitism has no place in today’s world.”

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, today attacked the “doomed” Middle East peace talks and urged Palestinians to continue armed resistance to Israel. Ahmadinejad used the annual al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day rally in Tehran to scorn the Obama administration’s efforts in launching the first Arab-Israeli negotiations in nearly two years.

“The people of Palestine and the people of the region will not allow them to sell even an inch of Palestinian soil to the enemy,” he said.

Iran supports Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian movement that controls the Gaza Strip and opposes talks involving Mahmoud Abbas, the western-backed PLO leader who is based in the West Bank.

A cargo plane belonging to United Parcel Service (UPS), the US-based delivery company, has crashed near the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai in an unpopulated desert area of a UAE military base, leaving its two crew members dead, officials say.

The accident occured just after the plane took off from Dubai airport as the crew attempted to make an emergency landing.

There were reports that the aircraft’s cockpit had caught fire before the crash on Friday.

Saif al-Suwaidi, the general manager of the country’s civil aviation authority, told local media agencies: “The pilot reported fire and smoke in the cockpit and was instructed to return to Dubai.

“After failing to land at the airport, the plane disappeared from radar screens and was found later [at the crash site].”

The official news agency Wam, quoting aviation officials, reported that the “bodies of two pilots” had been found at the scene.

Al Jazeera’s Dan Nolan, reporting from just outside the site of the crash, said: “I can see a large plume of thick smoke in the distance, there is certainly a big fire.

“The Boeing 747 was it was on its way to Cologne in Germany, but we understand there was problem with the plane.”

Ismail al-Baroushi, a spokesman for the aviation authority, said an investigation into the accident was under way, but it was “too early to speculate” on the cause of the crash.

A spokesman for the US transportation safety board has said the agency will send a team of experts to Dubai to assist with the investigation.

BRUSSELS — Israelis and Palestinians should avoid “provocative actions” which could derail direct peace talks, the European Union’s chief diplomat said Thursday after a flare-up of violence.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas “for their vision and political courage” as they prepared to resume negotiations.

She said the outcome of their talks would be “crucial” for both sides and the whole Middle East.

But the killing of four Israelis near a West Bank settlement, an attack claimed by the Islamist militant group Hamas, “shows that there are forces in the region which are determined to undermine the peace process,” Ashton said.

“We must not allow them to succeed. Supporters of peace must persevere through difficult times,” she said in a statement.

“It is very important that all relevant parties avoid provocative actions which could undermine the success of the talks.”

Ashton added: “This attack underlines, above all, the urgency of a two-state solution with the State of Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable State of Palestine, living side by side in peace and security with each other and their neighbours.”

Abbas and Netanyahu were to resume direct talks in Washington on Thursday following a 20-month hiatus.

Ashton reiterated hopes expressed by a quarter of international powers that the two sides would conclude negotiations within one year, adding that the talks “should focus on all final status issues.”

The European Union is a member of the Middle East Quartet, along with the Russia, the United States and the United Nations.

Ashton was invited to an informal dinner ahead of the talks in Washington, but was unable to attend due to a previously scheduled trip to China.

NICOSIA, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) — Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman came out on Friday in support for a “long-term intermediate solution” to the Middle East problem.

“The best and realistic approach would be a long-term intermediate agreement or solution” to the complicated dispute between Israel and Palestine, Lieberman told reporters after talks with his Cypriot counterpart Marcos Kyprianou.

He suggests that the newly-launched direct peace talks should focus on security and economy.

Lieberman said he is not sure if it is possible to solve all the “emotional problems” such as Jerusalem, refugees and Jewish settlement this year or next.

The Israeli foreign minister is paying a two-day official visit to Cyprus — a further indication of Israel’s drive to build closer relations with neighboring countries.

His talks with Kyprianou focused on the Middle East peace process, the Cyprus problem and a joint Cyprus-Greece initiative for the transportation of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza strip.

Lieberman gave a cautious response to the proposal, saying there are technical issues to be solved.

Both Kyprianou and Lieberman condemned terrorist attacks mounted by the armed section of Hamas Islamist group which aimed at derailing the Middle East peace process.

Cyprus President Demetris Christofias is expected to visit Israel in the coming months. His visit will top a long list of meetings between the foreign ministers of Israel and Cyprus. They met seven times over the past eight months.

Cyprus is the nearest non-Islamic country to Israel, with only about 300 kilometers of sea between them.

An Israeli source traveling with Lieberman said Israel is very much interested in building close cooperation with Cyprus and having access to Larnaca airport, the nearest European airport to Tel Aviv.

The source added that Cyprus and Israel aim at enhancing their economic ties, including having consultations on exploitation of undersea natural gas in neighboring areas of their respective economic sea zones.

Maybe one day. HSBC boss Michael Geoghegan isn’t going anywhere for a while, but Mr Gulliver, head of investment banking globally, and the whole bank in Europe and Middle East, is now widely seen as his most likely successor.

A big player in the City, then?

For now at least. But Mr Gulliver is dropping broad hints that he and his bank might quit the City if banking reform does not go their way.

Britain’s biggest bank leaving? Isn’t that unthinkable?

Not at all. HSBC, like rivals including Barclays and Standard Chartered, is concerned about the ongoing Commission on Banking, which the Coalition Government asked to look into the sector following the financial crisis. If the Commission says the largest banks should be broken up, Mr Gulliver warns there will be “significant implications for where we may choose to headquarter our institution”.

Where would they go?

The clue is probably in the name – HSBC does, after all, stand for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Mr Gulliver insists the bank’s preference is to remain in the UK, but HSBC has already relocated its chief executive’s office to Hong Kong, emphasising the importance it attaches to its Asian businesses.

This sounds like a threat.

Well, Mr Gulliver, a 30-year veteran of HSBC, is a tough cookie and no stranger to international travel. He worked for the bank all over the world before moving to London in 2002 to run its investment banking division. He shared that role for a period with John Studzinski, a banker with a much more high- profile reputation, but outlasted him.

So will HSBC really leave?

If it is really asked to choose between giving up its investment banking business and remaining as a British-based company, then probably so – certainly if Mr Gulliver has anything to do with the decision. You can see his point: the investment banker knows that his business contributes more than half of HSBC’s profits.