Two Arab envoys on a landmark visit to Israel presented its
leaders with a regional land-for-peace plan on Wednesday and called
for a rapid timetable for talks with the Palestinians over
statehood.
Israel's Defence
Minister Ehud Barak (C) shakes hands with Jordan's Foreign Minister
Abdelelah al-Khatib (L) as Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul
Gheit watches before their meeting in Tel Aviv July 25,
2007.
Israel described the one-day visit by the Jordanian and Egyptian
foreign ministers as a "historic" move on the part of the 22-nation
Arab League. But it stopped short of embracing their initiative,
which offers a comprehensive Arab peace if the Jewish state cedes
all occupied land and meets other demands.
Reaching out to the Palestinians and Arab states, Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert sent the clearest signal yet that he would try
to restart talks on the final status of a Palestinian state with
President Mahmoud Abbas, whose secular Fatah faction lost control
of the Gaza Strip last month to Hamas Islamists.
"We need a precise timetable, a quick timetable and we urge
Israel not to waste this historic opportunity. Time is not on our
side," Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdelelah al-Khatib told a news
conference at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said it was not
sufficient for Israel to limit talk to what diplomats call a
"political horizon" -- defined by Olmert's aides as the legal,
economic and governmental structures of a future Palestinian state.
"I don't see (that) as enough because the horizon, often if not
frequently, is never reached," he said.
Olmert said there was "a chance in the near future for the
process to ripen into talks that would, in effect, deal with the
stages of establishing a Palestinian state."
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Israel's Channel 10
television that talks should include "issues that go beyond the
immediate" with the goal of achieving "the broadest agreements
possible at this time."
But Olmert, weakened domestically by last year's inconclusive
war in Lebanon, said there were "no precise timetables or stages
established yet" for getting to discussions about permanent borders
and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, all divisive
issues in the Jewish state.
Livni cautioned: "If we will begin to get into the details of
final status, it may lead to a deterioration and stagnation."
Schism
Speaking in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Abbas said he hoped
Olmert would become a "partner to a final settlement that will lead
to an independent viable Palestinian state."
Neither Israel nor the visiting Arab envoys spelled out how
significant progress could be made towards statehood with the
Palestinian territories divided between Hamas-run Gaza and the
Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Fatah holds sway.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Olmert's comments were a
diversion meant to "throw dust in the eyes" of the world.
Wednesday's visit was the first by Arab League representatives
to promote their peace plan, which offers Israel normal ties with
all Arab states in return for a full withdrawal from the lands it
seized in the 1967 Middle East war, creation of a Palestinian state
and a "just solution" for refugees.
Livni told the envoys she saw "an opportunity" to use the Arab
plan to advance bilateral talks with Abbas but she was
non-committal about the plan itself.
"We want to hear your ideas and want to express our ideas, so
that we'll be able to carry on," Olmert told the envoys.
Olmert has said the Arab plan has positive elements. But citing
demographic and security concerns, he made clear Israel opposed the
return of Palestinian refugees to their former homes in what is now
the Jewish state and wanted to hold on to major settlement blocs in
the West Bank.
Israel sought to cast the envoys' visit as a potential turning
point in relations with the Arab League.
But Arab diplomats played down the gesture, and the head of the
Arab League told the BBC that the Egyptian and Jordanian diplomats
were not acting on behalf of the organization.
?
Egypt and Jordan already have full relations with Israel, and
despite US and Israeli appeals to expand the number of Arab
participants in the talks, Saudi Arabia and other Arab League
members have refused to take part.
(China Daily via agencies July 26, 2007)
