U.S. President Barack Obama embarks on a diplomatic marathon this week at the United Nations, touting his approach to Libya, but hoping to contain Palestinian ambitions for statehood.

Leaving behind for 48 hours domestic battles with Republican opponents and an uphill battle to see his jobs plan move through Congress, Obama will huddle with a host of world leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly and speak before the chamber early Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that next week's bid by the Palestinians for U.N. membership had no chance of success and that they would ultimately seek renewed talks.

"Their attempt to be accepted as a member of the United Nations will fail," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. "That attempt will fail, since it has to pass through the Security Council."

The European Union on Saturday called for a "constructive solution" on the issue of Palestinian statehood and a resumption of negotiations with Israel.

"We continue to believe that a constructive solution that can gather as much support as possible and allows for the resumption of negotiations is the best and only way to deliver the peace and two state solution the Palestinian people want," said Jaja Cocijanic, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Thursday that the Palestinians will submit their U.N. bid on September 23 but are willing to listen to other ideas in the meantime.

Envoys from the United States, the European Union and the diplomatic Quartet have been holding 11th-hour talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders in an effort to get them back into direct peace talks that stalled a year ago.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu restated that face-to-face talks were the key to peace with the Palestinians, in talks with Germany's foreign minister who wound up a trip to Israel on Tuesday.

"Peace will be achieved only through direct negotiations and not through unilateral moves," Netanyahu told Guido Westerwelle, according to a statement issued by his office after the two met in Jerusalem on Monday.

Israeli officials called on Sunday for relations with Egypt to return to normal despite Friday's attack by a mob on Israel's embassy in Cairo.

"We shall do everything in order that relations between the two countries will return to normal," Environment Minister Gilad Erdan, considered close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told public radio.

Vandals graphitized a West Bank mosque, torched two Palestinian cars and uprooted olive trees overnight in attacks which locals on Thursday blamed on Jewish settlers.

The mosque in Yatma village some 10 kilometers south of Nablus was spray-painted with Hebrew graffiti reading "price tag" and "Migron" in reference to a settlement outpost where Israeli troops demolished three homes on Monday.

Israel will not apologize to Turkey for a deadly May 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla and will not lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip, an Israeli minister insisted on Wednesday, as ties with Ankara sank to new lows.

"Israel defends its interests and its government will not apologize," said Israel Katz, Israel's transport minister and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.

An estimated 400,000 Israelis poured into streets across the Jewish state on Saturday to protest the high cost of living, after organizers called for a "million-man march" to revitalize their movement.

The estimated figures were record-breaking, exceeding even the 300,000 people who took part in similar demonstration on August 6, and lending new life to the six-week old movement calling for sweeping economic reforms.

Israeli activists have called for a "demonstration of one million" people as part of their ongoing protest movement against rising costs of living in the Jewish state, organizers said Friday.

It will be held Saturday evening across Israel, the organizers said.