Israel Seen as Fighting Peace

by Adam Morrow / Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
Inter Press Service
April 12, 2007

CAIRO - Israel’s rejection of the Arab peace initiative, which was reiterated at last month’s Arab Summit, drew emphatic criticism from Egyptian commentators. Although Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert later called for peace talks with “moderate” Arab heads of state, most local political observers say Tel Aviv wants to have its cake and eat it too.”Olmert’s response was an attempt to normalise relations without responding to the initiative’s demands,” Mohamed Basyouni, former Egyptian ambassador to Israel and head of the committee for Arab affairs in the Shura Council (the upper consultative house of the Egyptian parliament) told IPS. “It was a totally unacceptable manoeuvre that puts the carriage before the horse.”

The Saudi-backed peace plan, first tabled at the 2002 Arab Summit in Beirut, offers across-the-board Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for core Palestinian demands.

According to the proposal’s terms, Arab capitals would extend full diplomatic relations to the Jewish state in exchange for total Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967. The plan seeks a “just solution” to the Palestinian refugee issue on the basis of UN resolutions, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

(more…)