LONDON/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 10 January 2003 — Britain said yesterday Israel had rebuffed Prime Minister Tony Blair’s personal plea to let Palestinians attend Middle East peace talks in London next week but vowed that dialogue would go ahead “in one form or another”.
In a sign of growing tension between the two countries, Blair’s spokesman said Israel had delivered its response after postponing a planned meeting between the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Britain’s ambassador.
The rebuff places the conference, which had been scheduled for next week, in doubt, although Downing Street said it would go ahead later this month with the Palestinians participating by video link.
Sharon’s office contacted Downing Street directly on the issue, although the British ambassador is scheduled to meet the Israeli leader only today to deliver Blair’s request in person. The Israeli Cabinet took the decision to prevent members of the Palestinian Authority traveling to London from the Occupied Territories in response to the bombing in Tel Aviv on Sunday.
“The Israeli position remains unchanged and we equally are committed to continuing the process of dialogue with the Palestinians and we will be reflecting on how we can continue to do that as soon as possible, within the original time span,” Blair’s spokesman said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Supreme Court decided yesterday to overturn a ban on two Israeli Arab MPs running in the elections, defusing fears of a creeping “apartheid” in the Jewish state, but relations between the two communities remained tense.
Ahmad Tibi as well as Azmi Bishara and his Balad party, had been disqualified last week by the Central Electoral Commission on the grounds that they supported “Palestinian terror”.
The Supreme Court’s 11 judges also allowed former extremist anti-Arab activist Baruch Marzel to run on the ultranationalist Herut party list, rejecting the Labour Party’s appeal against the commission’s decision to validate his candidacy.
Tibi, who will run for the Communist party Hadash, was accused by the commission of “supporting terrorist organizations which commit anti-Israeli attacks”. Tibi told reporters the Supreme Court’s verdict had “put an end, albeit temporarily, on the right wing’s attacks against the minority”.
A corruption scandal embroiling Sharon turned Israel’s election campaign into an open race yesterday after opinion polls showed support for his front-running Likud party plummeting. The scandal has fired up a lackluster campaign in the run-up to voting in which opinion polls had originally forecast the extreme right-wing Likud would crush its main opponent, the center-left Labour Party. (Agencies)
