Posts Tagged ‘Mahmoud Abbas’’
How many UN resolutions for a State of Palestine is required for the US to bow down to the world community?
Posted on: May 26, 2020
How many UN resolutions for a State of Palestine is required for the US to bow down to the world community?
Note: Re-edit of “UN Passes Five Resolutions In Favor Of Palestine “December 5, 2015
And yet, the US does Not want to hear anything resembling fairness, equitable and rights for a displaced population by the colonial powers to Return Home.
Currently, the US of Trump want to offer All Palestinian Lands to Israel (West Bank), and including the Syrian Golan Heights and Jordanian lands in Ghour al Ordon…
The resolutions endorse the return to peace talks, denouncing settlements in disputed East Jerusalem and in support of the work of the UN Committee fighting for the rights of the Palestinian people.
(What of the colony settlements in West Bank? Funded by US taxpayers)
A week ago, Mahmoud Abbas rescinded the Oslo agreement and banned all security intelligence services with Israel.
Jordan monarch has warned that Jordan will cancel parts of the Wadi Araba peace agreement with Israel during King Hussein.
New York, New York (IMEMC) – The overwhelming majority of General Assembly of the United Nations, Wednesday, voted on 5 draft resolutions in favor of Palestine.
The decision comes after the Assembly discussed the two articles, “the Palestinian Cause” and “the Conditions in the Middle East.”
According to Al Ray, the first resolution was entitled, “Using Amicable Methods to Resolve the Palestinian Cause”. The voting results were 148 in favor to 6 against, with 8 abstentions.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The second resolution regarding “Jerusalem” passed with 144 votes in favor to 6 against, and 10 abstentions.
The third resolution was entitled, “The Informational Program about the Palestinian Cause”, which is being handled by the administration of media affairs in the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and passed with 147 votes in favor to 7 against, and 9 abstentions.
The fourth resolution was entitled “Committee for Palestinians Right to Exercise Ownership of Their Inalienable Rights.” The voting results were 94 in favor to 7 against, with 56 abstentions. (Those abstending States do Not consider Inalienable Rights should cover the Palestinian people?)
The last resolution, entitled, “The Section of Palestinians Rights in the Secretary-General of UN”, passed with 91 votes in favor to 7 against, with 59 abstentions.
After the voting process, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, gave a speech to show his gratitude and thanks to the member countries of the UN for their initial stand, and their votes in favor of the resolutions that show their support to the Palestinian cause.
Mansour added that the international community represented by the United Nations’ protection of international law is a source of comfort and support to the Palestinian people.
It will help them in their continuing journey of resisting and striving to maintain their inalienable rights, and bringing an end to the Israeli occupation, which will liberate the state of Palestine and its Capital of East Jerusalem, and fulfill the two-state solution.
The ambassador also affirmed the importance of the resolutions approved by the UN concerning Palestine, saying that what affects the credibility of the United Nations is not as some claim, the adoption of these resolutions but the nonexistence of a necessary political will to force Israel to show respect to these resolutions and apply it.
Note: A reminder that the UN also voted in 1948 for the right of return to the Palestinians to their homelands.Why it is Not reiterated and enforced?
Palestinian Authority? None of the sort: Abbas has no choice but to cooperate with Israel on security matters
Posted on: February 24, 2018
Is Abbas serving the Palestinians or fooling them?
Palestinian Authority? None of the sort: Abbas has no choice but to cooperate with Israel on security matters
Earlier this month, the Palestinian Authority announced that it would start preparing a plan for full disengagement from the Israeli occupation. The decision was taken by the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which held a three-hour meeting chaired by Palestinian Authority PA and Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas in his headquarters in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
The plan was approved unanimously by the Executive Committee, which is dominated by Abbas loyalists, and covers the political, administrative, economic and security levels.
When the PA government, led by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah — an Abbas man, of course — announced the plan, it added that it would ask a committee to study the possibility of replacing the Israeli shekel with a Palestinian currency.
In fact, the PA’s full disengagement from the Israeli occupation is needed badly, but it would not be effective on the ground because the Israelis control everything related to daily life across the occupied territories.
What’s more, the PA has restricted itself through several agreements signed with the occupation authorities, such as the Paris Economic Protocol.
The announcements did not actually reflect anything which suggests that Abbas is really planning to change his deep-rooted policy of dealing with the Israeli occupation, which is built upon what he has called “sacred” security cooperation.
Given that the Palestinian cause is passing through a critical phase, and the peace process has failed to achieve anything, Abbas is obviously just trying to keep public opinion on his side. (Using rhetoric?)
Read: PA has to cancel punitive measures on Gaza or quit, insists Hamas
There is a lot of evidence to demonstrate that this is the case, not least the fact that meetings between PA and Israeli officials are still held as a matter of routine.
Furthermore, cooperation between the PA security services and their Israeli counterparts is ongoing, and Palestinians resisting the occupation — as is their legal right — are still being detained by the PA acting on behalf of the Israelis.
Last Thursday, Economic Ministers Eli Cohen from Israel and the PA’s Abeer Odeh met in the Élysée Palace in Paris, allegedly to discuss obstacles to economic growth in the Palestinian territories. Cohen, though, let slip that such a meeting had security and political purposes.
This meeting came just one day after a high profile get-together by Hamdallah and Major-General Yoav Mordechai, Israel’s Government Activities Coordinator in the [Occupied Palestinian] Territories.
The meeting took place at the Prime Minister’s office in Ramallah. According to UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov, who attended the meeting, “All sides focused on the urgent need to finalise the reconstruction of physical damage from the 2014 Gaza conflict and on facilitating critical humanitarian solutions related to the electricity, water and health sectors.”
![Mahmoud Abbas turns a blind eye on Gaza's blockade - Cartoon [Latuff/MiddleEastMonitor]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/20140716_Latuff-TheThreeWiseAbbas.gif?resize=500%2C256&quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1)
Mahmoud Abbas turns a blind eye on Gaza’s blockade – Cartoon [Latuff/MiddleEastMonitor]
If this was the real reason for the meeting, it would have had some effect on the ground.
Dozens of similar meetings have done nothing for Gaza or the Palestinians. Hamdallah told the media twice in the past week that there would be no solutions for Gaza’s crises without the full handover of government offices in the enclave.
Is he unaware that all of his council ministers have traveled to Gaza and taken control of their offices properly, something that the media has witnessed and broadcast to the world?
Gaza was not the issue in Hamdallah’s meeting with Mordechai, because the Israeli Major General made it very clear that there was another objective. He stressed the importance of recovering the Israeli soldiers still missing in the Gaza Strip.
As far as security cooperation is concerned, Abbas himself called Israeli opposition leader Zehava Gal-On at the end of last month and stressed to her that it would continue. Gal-On wrote this on Facebook and Abbas did not deny it.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera, former Palestinian negotiator Diana Buttu said that, “Despite a decision by the PLO Security Council to end the cooperation, he [Abbas] is still holding on to the very essence of Oslo, which is security collaboration.”
#Abbas
Regarding Abbas and his war against the Palestinians who resist the Israeli occupation, the PA prisons are witnesses to what is being done to them. The PA courts, meanwhile, block the media from covering the issue.
Abbas makes it very clear that he is there to serve the Israeli occupation but not, as Buttu told Al-Jazeera, for the freedom of the Palestinians.
“It is quite the opposite,” she explained. “It is the basis for his personal political survival, and he is doing all of this at the expense of Palestinian lives.”
So, is Abbas serving the Palestinians or fooling them? The evidence is clear that it is the latter.
Note: Like Arafat before him, Abbas is financially satisfying the main Palestinian “leaders” of all factions
Palestine back in center stage: UN Passes Five Resolutions In Favor of occupied Palestinians
Posted on: December 5, 2015
UN Passes Five Resolutions In Favor Of Palestine
The resolutions endorse the return to peace talks, denouncing settlements in disputed East Jerusalem and in support of the work of the UN Committee fighting for the rights of the Palestinian people. (What of the settlements in West Bank?)
New York, New York (IMEMC) – The overwhelming majority of General Assembly of the United Nations, Wednesday, voted on five draft resolutions in favor of Palestine.
The decision comes after the Assembly discussed the two articles, “the Palestinian Cause” and “the Conditions in the Middle East.”
According to Al Ray, the first resolution was entitled, “Using Amicable Methods to Resolve the Palestinian Cause”. The voting results were 148 in favor to 6 against, with 8 abstentions.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The second resolution regarding “Jerusalem” passed with 144 votes in favor to 6 against, and 10 abstentions.
The third resolution was entitled, “The Informational Program about the Palestinian Cause”, which is being handled by the administration of media affairs in the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and passed with 147 votes in favor to 7 against, and 9 abstentions.
The fourth resolution was entitled “Committee for Palestinians Right to Exercise Ownership of Their Inalienable Rights.” The voting results were 94 in favor to 7 against, with 56 abstentions. (Those abstending States do Not consider Inalienable Rights should cover the Palestinian people?)
The last resolution, entitled, “The Section of Palestinians Rights in the Secretary-General of UN”, passed with 91 votes in favor to 7 against, with 59 abstentions.
After the voting process, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, gave a speech to show his gratitude and thanks to the member countries of the UN for their initial stand, and their votes in favor of the resolutions that show their support to the Palestinian cause.
Mansour added that the international community represented by the United Nations’ protection of international law is a source of comfort and support to the Palestinian people.
It will help them in their continuing journey of resisting and striving to maintain their inalienable rights, and bringing an end to the Israeli occupation, which will liberate the state of Palestine and its capitol of East Jerusalem, and fulfill the two-state solution.
The ambassador also affirmed the importance of the resolutions approved by the UN concerning Palestine, saying that what affects the credibility of the United Nations is not as some claim, the adoption of these resolutions but the nonexistence of a necessary political will to force Israel to show respect to these resolutions and apply it.
Note: A reminder: the UN also voted in 1948 for the right of return to the Palestinians to their homelands. What it is Not reiterated and enforced?)
Blatant bus racial segregation: How could it be motivated by “security” concerns?
Posted on: October 31, 2014
Blatant bus racial segregation: How could it be motivated by “security” concerns?
Israel’s top legal officer has ordered Moshe Ya’alon, the country’s defence minister, to explain a decision that effectively bans Palestinian workers from travelling to their West Bank homes on the same buses as Jewish settlers.
The demand, from Yehuda Weinstein, the Attorney General, follows criticism that the move – officially justified on “security grounds” – amounted to racial segregation.
Mr Ya’alon’s order will make it illegal from December for Palestinian labourers working in Tel Aviv and central Israel from boarding the Trans-Samaria bus, which travels through the occupied West Bank to the settlement of Ariel.
Moshe Ya’alon ordered to explain ban
Decision by Israel’s defence minister has led to accusations of racial segregation despite official insistence that it is motivated by “security” concerns
The defence minister’s justification contradicts the stance of the Israeli army, which has said it does not consider the Palestinian workers’ presence on the buses a threat Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Instead they will have to enter the West Bank through the Eyal checkpoint, far removed from many Palestinian populations centres, and then continue on separate buses.
The defence minister’s justification contradicts the stance of the Israeli army, which has said it does not consider the Palestinian workers’ presence on the buses a threat, since only those who have been given security clearance are allowed into Israel.
Now the Attorney General’s office has asked the defence ministry to list the facts and considerations – including legal advice – that prompted Mr Ya’alon’s decision, amid criticisms that he was motivated by a desire to curry favour with settlers’ groups.
The liberal Haaretz newspaper accused him of “kowtowing” to settler opinion while giving ammunition to those who characterise Israel as an “apartheid state“.
“The minister’s decision reeks of apartheid, typical of the Israeli occupation regime in the territories,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial headlined “Welcome Aboard Israel’s Apartheid Bus”.
“One of the most blatant symbols of the regime of racial separation in South Africa was the separate bus lines for whites and blacks. Now, Ya’alon has implemented the same policy in the occupied territories.”
A source in Mr Ya’alon’s office defended the move as “purely a security-related matter”. “Its purpose is to supervise the entries and exits into Israeli territory, thereby reducing the chances of terror attacks inside Israeli territory,” the source told Ha’aretz.
Israel’s transport ministry came under fire last year for introducing “Palestinian only” buses from Israel to the West Bank following complaints from settlers.
The latest controversy came as Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, hit back at international criticism of a decision to proceed with plans to build 1,060 new settlers homes in East Jerusalem, which is claimed by the Palestinians as their future capital.
The European Union and the US both condemned the move – apparently agreed in an attempt to appease pro-settler ministers in Mr Netanyahu’s coalition – as harmful to prospects for peace.
Mr Netanyahu dismissed the criticisms as “disconnected from reality”. “The EU and the US are applying a double standard when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he said on a visit to the port city of Ashdod.
“When Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority] incites murder of Jews in Jerusalem, the international community remains silent. And when we build in Jerusalem, they become indignant. I don’t accept that. Just as the French build in Paris and the British build in London, Israelis build in Jerusalem.”
Gaza back-story: Israel won’t be telling you
The Israelis of Sederot are coming under rocket fire from the Palestinians of Gaza?
Over 6,000 descendants of the Palestinians from Huj – now called Sederot – live in the squalor of Gaza. Israeli army had turned up at Huj on 31 May 1948 and expelled its inhabitants, never to return.
Living among the “terrorists” Israel is claiming to destroy and who are shooting at what was Huj.
The people who lived in Sederot in early 1948 were not Israelis, but Palestinian “Arabs”. Their village was called Huj. Two years earlier in 1946, these same Arabs had actually hidden Jewish Haganah “terrorist” fighters from the British Army.
David Ben Gurion (Israel’s first Prime Minister) called the expulsion from Huj an “unjust and unjustified action”. Too bad. The Palestinians of Huj were never allowed back.
This is not just about the foul murder of three Israelis in the occupied West Bank.
Or the foul murder of burning alive a Palestinian in occupied East Jerusalem.
Nor about the arrest of many Hamas militants and politicians in the West Bank. Nor about rockets.
As usual, in Israel objective it’s about land.
It’s about land.
The Israelis of Sederot are coming under rocket fire from the Palestinians of Gaza and now the Palestinians are getting their comeuppance. Sure. But wait, how come all those Palestinians – all 1.5 million – are crammed into Gaza in the first place? Well, their families once lived, didn’t they, in what is now called Israel? And got chucked out – or fled for their lives – when the Israeli state was created.
And – a drawing in of breath is now perhaps required – the people who lived in Sederot in early 1948 were not Israelis, but Palestinian Arabs. Their village was called Huj. Nor were they enemies of Israel. Two years earlier, these same Arabs had actually hidden Jewish Haganah fighters from the British Army.
But when the Israeli army turned up at Huj on 31 May 1948, they expelled all the Arab villagers – to the Gaza Strip! Refugees, they became. David Ben Gurion (Israel’s first Prime Minister) called it an “unjust and unjustified action”. Too bad. The Palestinians of Huj were never allowed back.
And today, well over 6,000 descendants of the Palestinians from Huj – now Sederot – live in the squalor of Gaza, among the “terrorists” Israel is claiming to destroy and who are shooting at what was Huj. Interesting story.
And same again for Israel’s right to self-defence. We heard it again today.
What if the people of London were being rocketed like the people of Israel? Wouldn’t they strike back? Well yes, but we Brits don’t have more than a million former inhabitants of the UK cooped up in refugee camps over a few square miles around Hastings.
The last time this specious argument was used was in 2008, when Israel invaded Gaza and killed at least 1,100 Palestinians (exchange rate: 1,100 to 13). What if Dublin was under rocket attack, the Israeli ambassador asked then? But the UK town of Crossmaglen in Northern Ireland was under rocket attack from the Irish Republic in the 1970s – yet the RAF didn’t bomb Dublin in retaliation, killing Irish women and children.
In Canada in 2008, Israel’s supporters were making the same fraudulent point. What if the people of Vancouver or Toronto or Montreal were being rocket-attacked from the suburbs of their own cities? How would they feel? But the Canadians haven’t pushed the original inhabitants of Canadian territory into refugee camps.
And now let’s cross to the West Bank.
First of all, Benjamin Netanyahu said he couldn’t talk to Palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas because he didn’t also represent Hamas. Then when Abbas formed a unity government, Netanyahu said he couldn’t talk to Abbas because he had unified himself with the “terrorist” Hamas. Now he says he can only talk to him if he breaks with Hamas – even though he won’t then represent Hamas.
Meanwhile, that great leftist Israeli philosopher Uri Avnery – 90 years old and still, thankfully, going strong – has picked up on his country’s latest obsession: the danger that Isis will storm west from its Iraqi/Syrian “caliphate” and arrive on the east bank of the Jordan river.
“And Netanyahu said,” according to Avnery, “if they are not stopped by the permanent Israeli garrison there (on the Jordan river), they will appear at the gates of Tel Aviv.”
The truth, of course, is that the Israeli air force would have crushed Isis the moment it dared to cross the Jordanian border from Iraq or Syria.
The importance of this, however, is that if Israel keeps its army on the Jordan (to protect Israel from Isis), a future “Palestine” state will have no borders and will be an enclave within Israel, surrounded on all sides by Israeli-held territory.
“Much like the South African Bantustans,” says Avnery. In other words, no “viable” state of Palestine will ever exist. After all, aren’t Isis just the same as Hamas? Of course not.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Getty Images)
But that’s not what we heard from Mark Regev, Netanyahu’s spokesman. No, what he told Al Jazeera was that Hamas was “an extremist terrorist organisation not very different from Isis in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Boko Haram…” Tosh.
Hezbollah is a Shia militia now fighting to the death inside Syria against the Sunni Muslims of Isis. And Boko Haram – thousands of kilometres from Israel – is not a threat to Tel Aviv.
But you get the point. The Palestinians of Gaza – and please forget, forever, the 6,000 Palestinians whose families come from the land of Sederot – are allied to the tens of thousands of Islamists threatening Maliki of Baghdad, Assad of Damascus or President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja.
Even more to the point, if Isis is heading towards the edge of the West Bank, why is the Israeli government still building colonies there – illegally, and on Arab land – for Israeli civilians?
This is not just about the foul murder of three Israelis in the occupied West Bank or the foul murder of a Palestinian in occupied East Jerusalem. Nor about the arrest of many Hamas militants and politicians in the West Bank. Nor about rockets. As usual, it’s about land.
Note 1: Do you care to refresh your memory on the Timeline of the attack on Gaza in 2012? https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/a-timeline-on-gaza-tragedy-from-imeu-and-the-electronic-intifada/
Note 2: Same lousy and murderous reasons that the western nations are extending Israel to resume its carnage, as in 2008 and 2012. Will anything change in humanity?
Young Ariel Sharon: Has he ever changed?
![War criminal Ariel Sharon, butcher of Beirut, is dead. He never faced justice for all the lives he ended and ruined. (Graphic by @[1069374286:2048:Doc Rocket] & me)](https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/p280x280/1601159_10100779688325510_527636638_n.jpg)
War criminal Ariel Sharon, butcher of Beirut, is dead. He never faced justice for all the lives he ended and ruined. (Graphic by Doc Rocket & me) Ben White‘s photo.
General Ouze Merham interviewed Sharon in 1956 and Ariel’s answers:
1. I massacred 750 Palestinians in Rafah in one swipe
2. I encouraged my soldiers to rape the Palestinian women
3. Palestinian women are slaves to the Jews
4. We dictate to others what we want
5. I swear that I am ready to kill any civilian Palestinian I meet
This is the French text:
Nadia Massih published in the Lebanese The Daily Starthis Jan. 11, 2014
BEIRUT: Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who died Saturday aged 85, was widely reviled in Lebanon for his role in the invasion of the country in 1982 as well as the massacres at the Beirut-based Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.
Sharon was commonly dubbed the “Butcher of Beirut” for his association with some of the worst atrocities during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 Civil War.
| The Daily Star |
 |
| FILE – In this June 15, 1982 file picture provided by the Israeli Defense Ministry, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, foreground, rides an armored personnel carrier on a tour of Israeli units advancing to the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, during the Israeli occupation. (AP Photo/Israeli Defense Ministry, File) |
He was a part of the Israeli military since the country’s creation, as a member of the Jewish Haganah paramilitaries in the 1947-48 war that led to the “Nakba,” displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
He rose through the ranks with his belligerent military strategies, leading a brigade in the 1956 Suez War, and engineering the capture of the Sinai Peninsula 11 years later during the Six Day War.
However, it was in his political career that he will be most controversially remembered.
As Defense Minister he spearheaded the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, set up to root out Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization and form a peace accord with the Beirut government. The invasion morphed into a long occupation, and inadvertently helped to confirm Hezbollah’s status as the resistance party.
In 1982, Israel’s ally Bashir Gemayel was assassinated by Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party member Habib Chartouni. Gemayel’s Kataeb fighters looked to the Palestinians to avenge the death and launched an attack of the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, which were under Israeli control.
Over 3,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, were brutally killed, and as many taken away, never to reappear.
It was a massacre that Sharon was personally implicated in. A U.N. investigation the next year concluded that Israel was responsible for the attacks, and the Israeli-run Kahan Commission the same year determined that Sharon was personally accountable.
The Kahan report’s findings said that Sharon bore responsibility “for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge” and “not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed.”
The conclusions led many to dub Sharon the “Butcher of Beirut” and forced him to resign from the defense post but he refused to leave Cabinet, remaining minister without portfolio.
His bellicose reputation continued into his tenure as prime minister.
In 2000, he walked brazenly into the Temple Mount complex which houses the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa mosque, some of the holiest sites in Islam. The inflammatory move was widely attributed as sparking the Second Palestinian Intifada.
He was also associated with the widespread expansion of illegal outposts in the West Bank. As Housing Minister in the 1990s, he oversaw the biggest settlement drive in 20 years.
However, despite his uncompromising attitude, in 2004 he signed into law a plan to re-house all settlers in the Gaza Strip.
Sharon: ‘Occupation’ terrible for Israel, Palestinians
Kelly Wallace on CNN this May 27, 2003
JERUSALEM (CNN) — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appears to be urging Israelis to accept giving up land for peace and advocating an end to what he called “occupation.”
“You cannot like the word, but what is happening is an occupation — to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation. I believe that is a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians,” he said Monday.
Those were stunning words from the longtime hawk and backer of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.
“It can’t continue endlessly,” Sharon said. “Do you want to stay forever in Jenin, in Nablus, in Ramallah, in Bethlehem? I don’t think that’s right.”
On Sunday, the Israeli Cabinet voted to accept — with reservations — the U.S.-supported “road map” to peace, clearing the way for a series of steps that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state within three years.
The first phase of the road map involves the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian zones reoccupied during the current uprising and a freeze on settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza.
Palestinian officials are required to crack down on militant groups that have carried out attacks against Israelis.
The Palestinian Authority accepted the plan last month after it was drafted by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, the so-called Mideast Quartet.
The Israeli Cabinet’s 12-7 vote, with four abstentions, marked the first time an Israeli government has formally accepted the principle of a Palestinian state.
But Sharon faces a skeptical public. In a newspaper poll Monday, 51 percent said implementing the road map would not lead to peace, while 43 percent said it would.
The stakes will be high for this week’s expected meeting between Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
Abbas will call for immediate implementation of the road map, including an end to Israeli military operations in Palestinian areas and a freeze on any settlement expansion, Palestinian advisers said.
Both steps are key to convincing radical Palestinian groups to stop attacks against Israel, the Palestinians said.
But Israeli sources said Sharon will reiterate his long-held position that the first step must be a clear and visible Palestinian crackdown on groups such as Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for four recent suicide bombings against Israelis.
Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist organization, has acknowledged attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers and has been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.
Daniel Ayalon, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, said Israel wants to see a “complete dismantling of the infrastructure of terror” by Abbas’ government.
“We cannot have negotiation by day and killing us at night,” Ayalon said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Sharon and Abbas failed to achieve any breakthroughs in their last meeting more than a week ago.
And a series of suicide bombings by Islamic militant groups befinning shortly before the meeting was seen as a “declaration of war” by Sharon’s government.
Now the two men face U.S. pressure to deliver, with a possible Mideast summit — with President Bush as host — perhaps hinging on what comes out of this week’s talks.
A three-way summit involving Sharon, Abbas and Bush could be called within 10 days.
A senior Bush administration official told CNN that the White House would not agree to a summit until it sees initial steps taken by both sides — a Palestinian crackdown on militants and the lifting of Israeli economic restrictions.
Nevertheless, a Bush administration advance team left Sunday morning for Egypt to begin preparations for the possible summit, an administration official told CNN. The team is also set to go to Jordan, which Bush might visit early next month.
Tags: adonis49, Aqsa mosque, Ariel Sharon, Ben White, Butcher of Beirut, Doc Rocket, Habib Chartouni, Hezbollah, Jenine massacre, Jewish Haganah paramilitaries, Kahan Commission, Kelly Wallace, Mahmoud Abbas', Nadia Massih, Nakba, Ouze Merham, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Liberation Organization, Qibaya massacre, road map, Sabra and Shatila genocide, Second Palestinian Intifada, Temple Mount, Young Sharon
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