AMMAN/RAMALLAH, 15 April 2007 — King Abdallah II of Jordan has sent invitations to politicians and peace activists from Israel, the United States and Palestinian territories for discussions in Amman as part of an effort to push forward the stalled Middle East peace process, officials said yesterday.
Among Israeli politicians due to visit Jordan next week will be the speaker of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), Dalia Itzik. The monarch intended to discuss with the guests “means of reviving the peace process on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative” that was readopted by the Arab summit conference in Riyadh at the end of March, a senior official said.
Abdullah urged Israelis earlier this week to respond to the Arab blueprint, which he said provided a “rare opportunity” for concluding peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Arab peace plan envisages extending recognition to Israel by all Arab states after it pulls out from all the Arab territories it occupied in the 1967 war, including East Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, the Israeli forces yesterday detained the Palestinian Labor Minister Mahmoud Al-Aloul for more than one-and-a-half hours at Huwwara checkpoint, south of Nablus.
The minister was held along with his guards because the Israeli soldiers found a pistol in the minister’s suitcase .
Speaking to Arab News via telephone, the minister said “the Israeli Army stopped me and my guards for more than an-hour-and-a-half at the barrier because they found a pistol in my suitcase.”
Aloul said that he forgot to tell the soldiers at the barrier about the pistol when they searched his car.
He confirmed that this was not the first time the Israeli soldiers have hindered the movement of Palestinians at more than 400 checkpoints in the West Bank.
In continued harassment against families and properties of Palestinian prisoners, a large numbers of Israeli soldiers backed by at least nine military vehicles have swept the West Bank city of Qalqilia at dawn yesterday and destroyed home of a Palestinian captive, wounding two women inside the house, local sources affirmed.
