The long-stalled Middle East peace process has witnessed signs
of progress in the past few days, with both Israel and Arab states
displaying positive attitudes in engaging dialogues with each
other.
During an Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Wednesday,
the Arab League chose Egypt and Jordan to take the lead to persuade
Israel to accept a reactivated Arab peace initiative, which has
also been described by Israel as "interesting."
The initiative was first adopted during 2002 Arab Summit in
Beirut and reactivated at Riyadh summit last month. It calls for
Israel's pullout from Arab land occupied in the 1967 Middle East
war and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in
return for the normalization of ties with Arab.
Just one day after the meeting, a group of Israeli lawmakers
headed to Amman for talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II.
Some observers said both sides seem to have started moving
towards the direction of reviving the peace process, although it
might only be a small step.
During Thursday's meeting, King Abdullah II called on Israel to
adopt the Arab peace initiative and urged the Jewish state not to
miss out the opportunity for peace in the long-troublesome
region.
For her part, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) Speaker and
Acting President Dalia Itzik, who led the delegation, invited the
Jordanian king to visit Israel and try to convince the Israeli
public to adopt the proposal despite Israel's many reservations
regarding the Arab initiative.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, responding to Arab decision
to contact the Jewish state, said on Wednesday that he is hopeful
of achieving peace with Arab neighbors since some of them are
showing "first signs of understanding" towards the Jewish
State.
The remarks convey another positive sign for the resumption of
the Middle East peace process.
Addressing a conference in Jerusalem, Olmert said there are also
first signs of developments that in the coming year Israel could
manage to make progress on resolving conflicts with its neighbors,
especially with the Palestinians. In addition, the contact between
Israel and the Palestinians is also making slight progress.
Palestinian National Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Olmert
on Sunday held their first biweekly meeting, which Olmert's office
said was a "positive and serious working meeting."
During the meeting, Israel pledged to take further measures to
ease the restrictions on Palestinians' daily life, while Abbas
offered Israel a plan that could partially defuse Israel's security
concern.
The plan, according to local media, was composed with the help
of a US general, and detailed the deployment of Palestinian
security forces in Gaza to prevent weapon-smuggling from Egypt and
Palestinian militants' rocket attack against Israel.
There are also media reports that Abbas is negotiating with
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Holy War) and trying to persuade the
militant group to halt rocket attacks on Israel.
Although Islamic Jihad on Wednesday denied reports that the
movement agreed to halt rocket attacks on Israel, it admitted talks
on the issue were underway.
However, in spite of all these positive signs that emerged in
the past few days, it is still premature to say that the Middle
East peace has entered a new phase.
For the moment, Israel still disagrees with some of the basic
principles set by the Arab peace initiative, including border
issue, the status of Jerusalem, especially the return of the
Palestinian refugees.
Olmert has recently reiterated Israel's stance that no
Palestinian refugees could be allowed to return.
Before the Riyadh summit was held in late March, Israel had
called on the Arab League to amend its peace initiative, but it was
ratified again unchanged.
Although Olmert has said that Israel is willing to listen to the
views from the Arab countries, he also stressed that Israel could
not be dictated.
Meanwhile, Israel still refuses to deal with the new Palestinian
unity government, which includes Hamas and the moderate Fatah, and
is continuing its efforts to press the international community to
boycott the government, citing its platform falls short of meeting
international demands of recognizing Israel and renouncing
violence.
There are still a lot of works need to be done before
substantial Middle East peace talks start.
(Xinhua News Agency April 20, 2007)
