U.S. sounds out Arabs on Israel gestures - diplomats

By Adam Entous and Alastair Macdonald

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States and its Western allies are sounding out Arab governments to see if they might ease sanctions on Israel if it stopped building Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory, diplomats said on Friday.

As Washington presses Israel's new government on settlements in order to unblock peace talks with the Palestinians, Israeli officials are looking for benefits to show their own voters, and easing Israel's isolation within the region could fit that bill.

But Arab leaders have so far been cool, Western diplomats said, to suggestions they might open their airspace to Israeli airliners, allow roaming calls by Israeli cellphones or let in tourists whose passports show they have also visited Israel.

"The Arabs are being very cautious," one diplomat said of discussions which several Western diplomatic sources were a result of discreet approaches by U.S. envoy George Mitchell and officials from the three other members of the Quartet of mediators -- the European Union, United Nations and Russia.

"The Arabs ... are saying they don't want to pay for something twice," the diplomat added, noting the standing Arab position that Israel had already committed under the 2003 "road map" peace plan to freezing all its settlement activity.

Another diplomat said there had been Quartet discussions on seeking commitments from Arab states to take steps on normalisation -- if Israel were to meet demands on settlements.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, after a meeting with Mitchell this week, made a link between U.S. efforts to persuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to defy right-wing coalition allies and freeze settlement, and progress in talks with Arab states on "normalising" relations with Israel.

Barak will fly to London on Sunday for further talks with Mitchell on Monday, an Israeli official said on Friday.