Barack Obama "threatened" the Palestinian president to withdraw a bid for recognition of Palestine at the UN.
He is also expected to reactivate the Palestinian bid for recognition of a state at the United Nations.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, plans to make a unilateral bid for recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations on Friday.
The warning comes as Washington is scrambling to avoid a scenario where it alone casts a veto in the UN security council against the Palestinian bid for recognition of statehood, which is expected to be formally requested next week.
But Mr. Shtayyeh, an adviser to the president, said that holding national elections would be pointless until after the completion of the Palestinians' pending bid for recognition of statehood at the United Nations.
The desecration of the mosque, in the Palestinian village of Al Mughayyir, near Ramallah, comes at a delicate time of international efforts to bring the Israeli and Palestinian sides back to peace talks, in order to fend off a controversial Palestinian bid for recognition of statehood at the United Nations in the fall.
Separately, the representatives of the international quartet of Middle East peacemakers met in Brussels on Sunday to follow up on their call for Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace talks in an effort to deflect the impact of a contentious Palestinian bid for recognition of statehood and membership in the United Nations.
If the world wants to express support for the Palestinian party that recognizes Israel, seeks to avoid violence, and genuinely wishes to reach a peace agreement in which a Palestinian state exists alongside — not instead of — Israel, it will have its chance later this week when Mr. Abbas makes his bid for recognition of Palestinian statehood before the United Nations.
The Palestinians have called for European backing, but Carl Bildt, the foreign minister of Sweden, which holds the European Union presidency, told reporters in Brussels that a bid for international recognition of a state not yet formed would be "somewhat premature".
The true significance of the Palestinian bid for United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state is that final-status talks based on the Oslo accords have run their course and failed.
