ANKARA: Israel has “no other choice” than to embrace the Arab Peace Initiative set out in 2002 if it wants to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said yesterday.
During a visit to Ankara in the wake of Israel’s 22-day war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Abbas pointed to the Arab League initiative — revived in March 2007 at a summit in Riyadh — as the best way forward in the Middle East.
“Israel has no other choice than to accept the Arab peace plan,” said Abbas during a meeting with Turkish President Koksal Toptan, the domestic Anatolia news agency reported.
The Arab Peace Initiative would see all Arab nations establish normal relations with Israel in return for an Israeli pullout from occupied lands and the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem.
While citing “positive aspects” in the initiative, Israel never formally accepted it, chiefly because it refers to a right of return for Palestinians made refugees by the 1948 founding of the Jewish state.
Promoted by Saudi Arabia, the initiative was embraced by all Arab League member nations at a summit in Beirut in March 2002.
Abbas said Turkey — which is not a league member — supports it.
Later in the day, during a televised press conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Abbas said he hoped to see a Palestinian “government of unity or reconciliation” that would “give no pretext to Israel” to maintain its crippling blockade of Gaza.
But he rejected a Hamas call for a new body to represent the Palestinians, saying his Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — the cornerstone of the Palestinian Authority — remains “the house of Palestinians.” Several Palestinian nationalist groups, notably as Abbas’s own Fatah party, make up the PLO, but Hamas is not among them.
“All organizations that wish to participate in the PLO must first accept its statutes,” Abbas said. “Once a member of the PLO, a movement can always reform it from top to bottom if it holds a majority.”
For his part, Gul appealed for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, saying that was an unavoidable precondition for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state. “It is not possible to have two Palestinian states,” Gul said. “It is time for unity.”
Abbas appealed for the quick dispatch of aid to people suffering in the Gaza Strip saying that Israel was holding up the vast majority of aid sent to the region.
He asked rhetorically what will the world do if Israel refuses to allow aid into the devastated region. “We want the Palestinian people to be allowed to live an honorable way, just like the rest of the world,” Abbas said with Gul agreeing.
“The most urgent thing is for the embargo to be lifted and for all aid to be allowed into Gaza,” Gul said.
Abbas thanked Gul for Turkey’s peace efforts during Israel’s military operations in Gaza, saying that Turkey has always been a supporter of peace and of the Palestinian people.
Abbas arrived in Ankara on Friday and went straight into a dinner with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of a meeting with Gul the following day.
Turkish officials have suggested that a Palestinian unity government comprised of non-partisan technocrats could be a first step.
Turkey assumed an active diplomatic role during the recent war in Gaza, acting as a mediator between exiled Hamas leaders and Egyptian officials who sought a cease-fire deal.
Erdogan strongly criticized Israel, a close ally of Turkey, during the 22-day offensive. Last week he stormed out from a heated debate on the issue at an international forum in Switzerland after clashing with Israeli President Shimon Peres.
