Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned world powers on Tuesday against holding "drawn out" negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program following the election of a more moderate president in Tehran.

"Iran should not be allowed to gain time by holding drawn out talks" with the international community, Netanyahu said during a meeting with Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, the prime minister's office said in a statement.

Suspected Jewish extremists punctured the tires of 28 cars and scrawled graffiti in an Arab Israeli town before dawn on Tuesday in the latest in a spate of apparent hate crimes, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

On a wall near the vandalized cars in Abu Ghosh, west of Jerusalem, the perpetrators wrote in Hebrew: "Arabs out," and: "Racism or assimilation."

As Shimon Peres turns 90, the indefatigable Israeli president is doing what he has always done: looking ahead, preparing for the next challenge and believing that he will see Middle East peace in his lifetime.

Old age has hardly slowed him down. If anything, it seems to have handed Peres a measure of the grace that eluded him as a younger man. And at a time when Israel is widely criticized for its ongoing occupation and continued settlement of war-won land, he operates as something of a one-man reminder that the country once aimed — in its 1948 Declaration of Independence — to be a "light unto the nations."

Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said on Monday that the idea of a Palestinian state is at a "dead end", prompting the Palestinians to accuse him of sounding the death knell of a two-state solution.

Bennett's comments are entirely in line with those that he espoused during January's election campaign but his reiteration of them as minister comes as Washington steps up efforts to revive the troubled peace process.

The Israeli and Palestinian finance ministers were meeting on Sunday for talks aimed at resuming economic contacts suspended by Israel last year, both sides said.

The meeting between newly-appointed Palestinian minister Shukri Bishara and Israel's Yair Lapid, who took office in March, was scheduled for 3.00 pm (1200 GMT), the Palestinian finance ministry said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday the world should keep up pressure on Iran to rein in its nuclear program and avoid thinking the election of a moderate president will bring change.

"The international community should not fall into wishful thinking and be tempted to ease pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program," Netanyahu said at the start a meeting of his cabinet.

Israel reacted to the election of Iran's new president on Saturday by saying it was supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who decides on nuclear policy, not the president.

"Iran's nuclear program has so far been determined by Khamenei, and not by Iran's president," the foreign ministry said after Hassan Rowhani was elected to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has called for tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program regardless of who is elected as its new president, public radio reported on Saturday.

The report came as partial results from Friday's election gave a clear lead to moderate Hassan Rowhani, who headed Iran's nuclear negotiating team under reformist president Mohammad Khatami in the early 2000s and has pledged to engage more with the international community.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon on Friday slammed Israel's settlement surge in the occupied West Bank as undermining hopes of ending the Middle East conflict by setting up a Palestinian state.

"The secretary general is deeply concerned by the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank in violation of international law," said U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky.

Head of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Mohammed Raad reiterated on Friday his bloc's support for the extension of the term of parliament, accusing the Musatqbal bloc of going back on its agreement to back the extension.

He revealed: “We reached an agreement with the Mustaqbal bloc to extend its mandate, but the United States then announced that it opposed such a measure.”