RAMALLAH/GAZA CITY, 2 March 2007 — In a significant move ahead of a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in two weeks and an Arab summit in Saudi Arabia later this month, Israel said yesterday it could not accept the Arab peace initiative in its current form.
“It’s impossible for Israel to accept the Arab peace initiative in its current version”, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam.
She told the newspaper that Arab countries had introduced new clauses to the Saudi peace initiative on the fate of Palestinian refugees making it “impossible to accept it in its current form.”
Under the plan, adopted by the Arab League at a summit in 2002, the Arab world would normalize ties with Israel in exchange for a full withdrawal from Arab land occupied since 1967 and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“The idea of establishing full diplomatic relations between Israel and the Arab countries is part of our ambitions... I think we have a common objective and that our differences are lessening,” Livni said.
“The Saudi initiative was initially a positive sign but since the hard-liners in Beirut added points going against a solution based on two states, it has become unacceptable to us in its current form,” she added.
“On the very day the Saudi (peace) initiative was reported in the New York Times, I was interviewed by an Israeli radio station and said that this initiative could be a good starting point (for the peace process).
“Later, they went to Beirut and added new phrases that made the initiative unacceptable from an Israeli standpoint. They added clauses stating that Palestinian refugees cannot be settled in areas where they currently reside,” Livni explained.
Livni cited the borders of a future Palestinian state as another sticking point. “The borders should be discussed in the framework of future negotiations because a Palestinian state did not exist in 1967, nor were the West Bank and the Gaza Strip connected, the first was part of Jordan and the second, Egypt.
“Therefore the dream of returning to the 1967 borders should not be considered the vision of a viable Palestinian state. That should be subject to negotiations,” she said.
In an interview with Reuters, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said yesterday that the European Union believed final status issues such as Jewish settlements on occupied territory needed to be addressed soon to encourage Palestinian support for Arab-Israeli peace talks.
“For the Palestinians it is highly important to also speak about the political horizon... that means final status issues in order to really see that things can be going for the future,” Ferrero-Waldner said. Egypt, Jordan and some major European governments are pushing for a quick jump forward in negotiations.
— Additional input from agencies
