EGYPT: Arab League proposes new Mideast peace conference

Arab League foreign ministers meeting in an emergency session in Egypt on Sunday (November 12) called for a fresh international peace conference to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute based on the principle of land for peace. The Arab ministers also pledged to break financial sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, but gave scant details as to how that would be accomplished. The ministers, who convened at the Cairo-based Arab League over Wednesday's (November 8) killing of 19 Palestinian civilians by Israeli fire in Gaza, said in a communiqué that permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Israel and Arab parties would be invited to attend the peace conference based on "the relevant international resolutions and the principle of land for peace". At a news conference after the session, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said that an international conference was needed to revive the moribund peace process. "The other item which, for example, calls for the convening of a peace conference, this all has to do with the major issue which is the Arab-Israeli conflict," he said. "We have in this very hall said before that the peace process does not exist any longer. I have said before that the peace process is dead. Actually the peace process which started right after the Madrid conference hasn't produced required result. On the contrary, there has been reluctance and this has all led to what we have seen now, sparking a wave of rage around the world, regarding the current situation. And now we have here called for an international conference that should be attended by the five permanent members of the Security Council, within all relevant resolutions and the principle of land for peace," he added. Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar of the militant group Hamas earlier refused to say whether his group would attend such a peace conference alongside Israel. The Israeli army, which says Wednesday's shooting was aimed at preventing rocket attacks on Israel, said the deaths were caused by a technical malfunction. Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza in June after Palestinian gunmen captured an Israeli soldier and killed two others in a cross-border raid. The military assault has killed more than 370 Palestinians, around half of them civilians. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed. The ministers also said on Sunday they would refuse to abide by crippling sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe after Hamas ousted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party in elections in January. The decision came as Hamas and Fatah opened talks on allocating cabinet seats in a unity government that Palestinians hope will lead to the easing of Western sanctions that have deepened hardship in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza. Moussa said emphatically that the Arab states would no longer participate in any boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. "Now we will have to transfer money, we will have to transfer the medical aid and food according to what the Palestinians need and what the Arabs decide, regardless of what others will decide," said Moussa. "We are not going to be party to any blockade or siege or punishment to the Palestinian people - we cannot be and we have not been. But we will work together in order to guarantee that all help needed will be afforded to the Palestinians," he added. The Arab ministers said they will agree on mechanisms to bypass the embargo. One Arab diplomat said that after difficulties earlier this year, the League was able to successfully transfer 100 million US dollars to the Palestinian Authority, although he did not give the details of how the transfer was processed. The diplomat said the problem was not finding a bank willing to do it, but persuading donor states to produce the money. The decision to ignore sanctions coincided with a Palestinian call for aid, particularly to help rebuild the town Beit Hanoun, the site of Wednesday's deadly shelling. Moussa said Kuwait had announced during the meeting a pledge of 30 million US dollars to the Palestinian Authority via the Arab League. The Arab League also criticized the United States casting of a veto yesterday that would have condemned Israel's attack on Beit Hanoun. Nine of the council's 15 members voted for the measure yesterday, while four abstained, meaning that without Washington's veto, the resolution would have passed. Moussa said that the Untied States' veto was considered a hostile act against the Arab world and had not helped the cause of peace. "We have expressed our deep dismay at the use by the United States of the veto against the draft resolution, and the Arab foreign ministerial council views the use of the veto as an unfriendly position by the US against Arab nations and the Arab people, which blocks the United Nations Security Council from fulfilling its proper role and encourages Israel to continue its aggression, which will not be conducive to establishing regional peace and actually saps the credibility of the United States," he said. "This is a clear position forged by the foreign ministerial council. By taking this position the council has gone just beyond condemnation to considering this position unfriendly, and empowering Israel to carry out its illegitimate actions against the Palestinian people. And this has been an important thing on which there has been consensus by Arab foreign ministers," he added. The United States has cast 82 vetoes in the United Nations' 61 years, and nine of the last 10 council vetoes, seven of which dealt with the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

ITN Source | November 12, 2006

Tags:. .difficulties. .condemned. .condemnation. .rebuild. .resolve