WASHINGTON, 29 November 2007 — Arab nations will give a US-sponsored Middle East peace drive a chance, but are waiting for Israel to prove it is serious about ending the conflict, Arab League chief Amr Moussa said yesterday as US President George W. Bush said Middle East peace was “possible.”
“We want to give this opportunity a chance. We have some misgivings, but we are waiting to see what will happen in the next two months,” Moussa told journalists here.
“During the next two months we will test the Israelis’ intentions to see if they are serious, or if this is just another game.”
Later, Bush said that Middle East peace was “possible” and promised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert his full support in forging it.
“I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t believe that peace was possible, and they wouldn’t be here either if they didn’t think peace was possible,” Bush said with his two guests standing quietly as his side after White House talks.
With Abbas and Olmert poised to return home to confront skepticism over the peace process, thawed after a seven-year freeze, the US president vowed his full support and urged the world to help.
“It’s very important for the international community to support these two leaders during the bilateral negotiations that will take place. And one thing I’ve assured both gentlemen, is that the United States will be actively engaged in the process,” Bush pledged.
“We will use our power to help you as you come up with the necessary decisions to lay out a Palestinian state that will live side by side in peace with Israel,” said the US president.
“Yesterday was an important day, it was a hopeful beginning. No matter how important yesterday was, it’s not nearly as important as tomorrow and the days beyond,” said Bush, one day after a 44-nation conference where both Palestine and Israel pledged to try to forge a peace treaty by the end of 2008 that would create a Palestinian state.
Saudi Arabia backed Tuesday’s launch here of a new Middle East peace drive, but shunned Israel’s call for the Arab world to normalize ties with it even before a deal with the Palestinians.
“We have come to support the launching of serious and continuing talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis that will address all the core and final status issues,” Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said in a statement to the peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland.
“These talks must be followed by the launching of the Syrian and Lebanese tracks at the earliest,” he added, citing other regional issues of concern to Arab states.
Saudi Arabia demanded Israel take concrete step toward ending the occupation of the Palestinian territories and making peace.
“We hope the positive words will be matched with concrete actions on the ground. We have heard in the past statements and indications of freezing settlements and dismantling of illegal outposts and removing checkpoints in the Palestinian territories. But we would like to see it this time implemented.”
Prince Saud put the burden for creating the conditions for forging diplomatic ties on Israel. “Peace emanates from the heart and mind, and not from the barrel of a cannon, or the exploding warhead of a missile,” he said.
“The time has come for Israel to put its trust in peace after it has gambled on war for decades without success,” he said.
“Israel, and the world, must understand that peace and the retention of the occupied Arab territories are incompatible and impossible to reconcile or achieve,” he said in a text released to the media.
In his speech at the start of the conference, Olmert urged Arab and Muslim states to follow the example of Egypt and Jordan in signing peace deals with Israel and ending a 60-year old boycott.
Jordan’s King Abdallah yesterday welcomed the US-hosted Middle East peace conference as an “important and serious” start toward ending Israeli occupation and establishing a Palestinian state. “The international peace meeting that began its work in Annapolis yesterday (Tuesday) with a large Arab participation represents an important and serious start to end occupation and to establish a Palestinian state by the end of next year,” a palace statement quoted the king as saying.
Bush, who faced criticism for not doing more sooner to resolve the conflict, had opened Tuesday’s conference at the US Naval Academy by reading a joint statement painstakingly negotiated by the two sides but which skirted the core issues that divide them.
Bush, however, lauded Olmert and Abbas for agreeing to “good faith, bilateral negotiations,” and Israel and the Palestinians committed themselves to send negotiating teams to a new session in Jerusalem on Dec. 12.
Trying to reinforce the seriousness of the US commitment, the Bush administration planned to name Marine Gen. James Jones, who was NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe until 2006, to the task to monitor compliance with a US-backed “road map”.
