Mr Lula da Silva. Photo: Reuters

JERUSALEM: Brazil has been accused of undermining the Middle East peace process after it formally recognised Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in his last month as Brazil's President, caused anger in Israel and the US by officially acknowledging Palestinian sovereignty over territory occupied by Israel since 1967.

By breaking ranks with his South American allies, Mr Lula da Silva appeared to be consolidating his legacy as the leader that turned Brazil into a major force on the world stage. But the move was denounced by Israel as a unilateral attempt to bypass the peace process that would ''harm trust'' between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships.

US politicians condemned Brazil's ''severely misguided'' and ''regrettable'' decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

Brazil's decision ''is regrettable and will only serve to undermine peace and security in the Middle East,'' said Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Ms Ros-Lehtinen will chair the panel from January when the new Congress sits. She said ''responsible nations'' should wait until Palestinians return to direct talks with Israel and recognise its ''right to exist as a Jewish state'', before taking such a step.

A Democrat, Eliot Engel, chairman of the House subcommittee overseeing relations with Latin America, condemned Brazil's move.

''Brazil's decision to recognise Palestine is severely misguided and represents a last gasp by a Lula-led foreign policy which was already substantially off track,'' Mr Engel said. ''Brazil is sending a message to the Palestinians that they need not make peace to gain recognition as a sovereign state.''

Mr Lula da Silva's decision, announced in a public letter to Mahmoud Abbas, his Palestinian counterpart, is the latest evidence of Brazil's growing interest in the politics of the Middle East.

In recent years, Brazil has been involved in unofficial ''back channel'' negotiations between Israel and Syria. In March, Mr Lula da Silva also became the first Brazilian leader officially to visit the Holy Land.

The trip was not without its controversies. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, refused to meet Mr Lula da Silva after he laid a wreath at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's grave and then turned down an invitation to lay a wreath at the grave of Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism.

Mr Lula da Silva's bid to reach out to Iran, which he visited in May after hosting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has also raised concerns in the US and Israel. Brazil and Turkey voted against a UN Security Council resolution in June imposing new sanctions on Iran's nuclear program after the two countries negotiated a deal to swap enriched uranium for fuel to power a reactor for medical isotopes.

Brazil's foreign ministry defended the move to recognise Palestinian sovereignty, saying it still believed a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinian leadership was ''essential''.

More than 100 states, mostly from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, have recognised Palestinian statehood, and Brazil becomes the last of the BRIC group of emerging powers - Brazil, Russia, India and China - to do so.

But Israel fears that other South American countries could now follow suit and there was speculation that Peru may do so in the next few days.

Telegraph, London; Bloomberg

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