DOHA (Reuters) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Sunday told foreign ministers from the world's Islamic countries the peace deal he signed with Israel was nearly dead. "The peace of the courageous which we have signed is today imperilled in many ways...I may even say that this agreement is almost uttering its last breath," Arafat said. He was addressing the opening session of the meeting of foreign ministers of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the Qatari capital Doha. The OIC groups the world's Islamic countries and represents their one billion people. Arafat blamed Israel's "arrogance" for the stalled Middle East peace process and called on the Islamic and Arab world to unite to confront the "grave crisis" in the region. "Jerusalem is calling upon you to rise as one man to salvage it. Jerusalem is as you know confronting a ferocious campaign to make it completely Jewish," Arafat said. Middle East peacemaking ground to a halt a year ago when the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the go-ahead for a controversial settlement in Arab East Jerusalem. Islamic militant suicide bombings and differences over the extent of Israeli pullbacks from the West Bank have deepened the crisis. Israel views all of Jerusalem as its eternal capital and says it can build wherever it wants, while Palestinians regard East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. Arafat on Saturday accused Israel of escalating "aggression" against Palestinians and called for international protection for his people as the West Bank seethed with fresh unrest over the killing of three Palestinian labourers at an army checkpoint last week. The U.S. State Department said on Friday that Washington was "extremely concerned" about the upsurge of violence and was searching for ways to revive deadlocked Middle East peace moves.