RIYADH, 29 March 2007 — Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh does not believe that Israel will accept the revived Arab initiative for peace with the Jewish state, he told AFP in an interview at the Arab summit in Riyadh.
“I don’t expect at all that Israel will accept the peace plan,” the Islamist premier said. “They have not said that the Arab initiative is positive, but that it contained something positive, which means that Israel does not want to consider the plan as a whole.”
Haniyeh said “the problem does not come from the Palestinians or the Arabs but from Israel, which refuses to deal with the Arab peace plan.”
The Saudi-inspired plan envisages Arab states normalizing ties with Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Arab land it occupied in 1967, the creation of a Palestinian state and the return of Palestinian refugees.
Foreign ministers from the 22-member Arab League agreed during preparatory talks on Monday to revive the plan and form working teams to hold contacts with all parties, including Israel.
Israel rejected the blueprint when it was first adopted in Beirut in 2002, but has since softened its stance by saying that with some modification the plan could be a basis for negotiation.
“The summit is being devoted to the initiative, which is good,” said Haniyeh, who now heads a national unity government embracing both his Islamist Hamas movement and the secular Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas.
Haniyeh said substantial progress had been made toward the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Gaza militants nine months ago. “Everyone we meet ... insists on the Shalit issue, and we are interested by this,” he said.
The 20-year-old Israeli conscript was seized in a cross-border raid last June by militants including members of Hamas’ military wing. “There have been contacts with our brothers in Egypt and the resistance factions which captured the soldier and I can confirm there has been major progress,” Haniyeh said.
“But it will require some time, I hope days. That depends on the Israelis,” he added, in an apparent reference to demands that Israel release Palestinian prisoners in exchange.
Abbas said last week that he hoped Shalit would be freed soon, but Israel has accused him of reneging on a promise to secure the soldier’s release before the formation of the new unity government.
