Jordan Times
Thursday, May 1, 2008
‘Peace deal should be
reached before year-end’
JT and agencies
HIS MAJESTY KING Abdullah on Wednesday met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert who arrived on a short visit to the Kingdom.
A Royal Court statement said the meeting was “part of the King’s efforts to
support the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations”.
His Majesty stressed during the meeting that the peace talks should lead to a
deal on the basis of the two-state solution before the end of this year, as per
commitments made by the parties at the Annapolis conference last November.
The envisioned peace agreement, the King said, should address all final status
issues and result in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
King Abdullah added that achieving peace requires advancing negotiations within
clear mechanisms and specific timelines.
His Majesty called on Olmert to work towards improving the daily living
conditions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
For his part, Olmert briefed King Abdullah on the negotiations and expressed
appreciation for the King’s pro-peace efforts.
Bashir ends US visit
Minister of Foreign Affairs Salah Bashir concluded on Wednesday a several-day
visit to the US, where he met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
several senior officials.
During his meeting with Rice, the minister stressed the importance of US
involvement in supporting negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis
during the coming months.
Bashir also said it was important to activate the US role in removing obstacles
facing negotiations to reach a peace agreement that addresses all final status
issues.
The minister underlined the need for the US to urge Israel not to take any
action that threatens the peace process, stressing Jordan’s condemnation of the
attack on Gaza Strip that resulted in the death of five members of one family: a
mother and her four children.
Bashir also stressed the need to halt expansion of settlements and end the siege
imposed on the Palestinians.
In a speech he delivered at the annual ceremony of the Jewish-American
Committee, Bashir stressed that the Palestinian issue was a core issue in the
region, calling on the members of the committee to intensify their efforts to
support the peace efforts.
Palestinian factions
agree on truce
Meanwhile, Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo for talks with Egyptian
security officials have agreed to an Egyptian proposal for a truce with Israel
starting in the Gaza Strip, state news agency MENA said on Wednesday.
But a number of factions were equivocal in their support for the truce, and some
said they reserved the right to retaliate against Israeli attacks.
“All the Palestinian factions have agreed to the Egyptian proposal on a truce
with Israel,” MENA said, citing an unnamed high-level Egyptian official.
The official said the proposal included a “comprehensive, reciprocal and
simultaneous truce, implemented in a graduated framework starting in the Gaza
Strip and then subsequently moving to the West Bank,” MENA added.
MENA said the proposal was part of a broader plan eventually leading to the
lifting of the blockade which Israel, with Egyptian help, has imposed on Gaza
since last June.
The plan includes attempts to reconcile the two biggest Palestinian factions -
the Hamas Islamists who control the Gaza Strip and the Fateh group which
controls the Palestinian Authority from its base in the West Bank.
Egypt invited 12 Palestinian groups for talks to form a consensus on a proposal
for a ceasefire that emerged from talks between Egypt and Hamas as part of
efforts to end violence - threatening talks between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority.
The group Islamic Jihad said on Tuesday it had approved a truce with Israel
starting in the Gaza Strip, but reserved the right to respond to Israeli attacks
in the West Bank.
Hamas welcomed news of the agreement in Cairo and said Palestinian demands to
lift the blockade and open border crossings must be met, adding that the
agreement “kicks the ball into the Israeli court”.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Olmert, said: “For quiet to be sustainable and to be
real it must contain three essential elements: total absence of hostile fire
from Gaza into Israel, an end to terrorist attacks, and the end of illicit arm
transfers. If this was to happen we could have quiet tomorrow.” Israel
previously dismissed Hamas’ truce offer as a ploy to gain time to prepare for
more fighting, but said it would have no reason to attack the Gaza Strip if
Palestinians stopped firing missiles across the border.
Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 but still
controls its borders and has tightened its restrictions since Hamas seized
control there last year.
More attacks, closure
An Israeli aircraft attacked a metal workshop in the southern Gaza Strip on
Wednesday, killing one person and wounding three others, Palestinian officials
said.
The attack came as Palestinian groups agreed in principle to a ceasefire with
Israel. Shortly before the air strike, Hamas’ prime minister in the Gaza Strip,
had said “the ball is in the Israeli court.”
The army confirmed the air strike in Rafah, a town located next to the Egyptian
border.
Residents said the air strike targeted a metal workshop close to border crossing
with Egypt. Metal workshops are often used by fighters to make homemade rockets.
One witness said three helicopters hovered over the southern Gaza town and were
fired at by Palestinian fighters on the ground before the air strike took place.
Medical officials confirmed the casualties. It was unclear whether they were
fighters or civilians.
Also on Wednesday, Israel clamped a two-day closure on the West Bank, ahead of
Holocaust Remembrance Day observances beginning at sunset. Closures ban
Palestinians from entering Israel, and are routinely imposed around major
holidays and events to lessen the chance of attacks.
Roadblocks
Israel should remove 10 major West Bank checkpoints to give a badly needed boost
to the Palestinian economy and can do so without compromising security, a group
of Israeli ex-generals and Palestinian officials said in a joint report
Wednesday.
The 10 checkpoints cause major disruptions to Palestinian trade and movement,
said the report, whose authors include two former chiefs of Israel’s military
government in the West Bank.
The findings came just days after the World Bank warned that the Palestinian
economy is not likely to grow this year, largely due to continued Israeli
restrictions on movement, and despite massive foreign aid.
Representatives of donor countries meet in London later this week to review the
aid effort - $7.7 billion pledged over three years. The bank warned that more
aid might be needed if the Palestinian economy doesn’t recover from several
years of downturn. A recovery depends on easing restrictions, the bank said.
Israel erected a network of hundreds of roadblocks, dirt mounts and gates after
the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in 2000, and insists it’s still the
most effective way to deter fighters.
However, Wednesday’s study said Israel could ease up without jeopardising
security.
Instead, the group focused on 10 checkpoints that Palestinian officials said are
particularly harmful to Palestinian trade. The list included three checkpoints
around Nablus, the West Bank’s second-largest city and a former resistance
stronghold.
In recent months, the Palestinian government tried to get gunmen off the streets
in Nablus, deploying security forces. Israel says the deployment is a good start
but that the Palestinian Authority needs to do more. Israeli troops carry out
almost nightly arrest raids in the city, saying it’s too early to rely on
Palestinian forces.
Regev reiterated that Israel is taking some risks, but does not want to be
hasty.
“We have an obligation to protect our people from a very real terrorist threat
that exists in the West Bank,” he said.
On Tuesday, the commander of Israeli military intelligence warned that
Palestinian armed groups would try to carry out an attack during Israel’s 60th
anniversary celebrations, which begin next week.
A senior Israeli security official said the military is making a “major effort”
to ease the movement of Palestinians and is taking down roadblocks wherever
possible. He said progress would depend on the willingness of Palestinian
security forces to act against fighters.
Palestinian efforts so far have focused on criminal elements, not fighters, he
said.
In other developments Wednesday, Israeli troops shut down a women’s sewing
cooperative run by the Islamic Charitable Association, the largest Islamic
charity in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The Israeli military said the charity was a Hamas front, and that it funded
violent activity against Israel. The charity denied it is linked to Hamas.