AP News, September 21st, 2007
Egypt's foreign minister said Friday that upcoming U.S.-proposed peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians must have a clear focus similar to those negotiations that led to the signing of the landmark peace deal between in Egypt and Israel in 1979.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit said that if Arab governments were convinced President Bush's proposed peace negotiations would address substantive issues, they would commit to pushing the Israeli and Palestinian leaders toward a deal. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have said they might not attend if core issues are not on the table.
"We need to understand where we're headed and the endgame," Aboul Gheit said during a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations. "If before the conference there will be a document that will convince people that both of them are able to do something, then you'll find everybody jumping in and trying to help and to push and to convince."
Aboul Gheit did not spell out what he meant by an "endgame" for these negotiations. The Bush administration has not indicated whether the talks _ expected in November, but not yet scheduled _ will tackle the most contentious issues, including the borders of a Palestinians state, a solution for Palestinian refugees and the status of disputed Jerusalem.
The Palestinians want the international conference to yield an outline for a peace deal with a timetable. Israel wants a vaguer declaration of intent.
Speaking ahead of next week's General Assembly session at the U.N., Aboul Gheit said the success of the discussions rests, in part, on the various parties' recognizing that Hamas must be factored into the equation and on helping convince Palestinians to chose Fatah's course of engagement with Israel over Hamas' confrontation with the Jewish state.
Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in June after thrashing pro-Fatah security forces, causing President Mahmoud Abbas to expel the Islamic group from the Palestinian government and form a new Fatah-led government based in the West Bank.
"Today we are witnessing a race between two Palestinian leaders, two Palestinian entities," Aboul Gheit said. "And that race is a race to convince the people (which) course is better, the course of confrontation with the Israelis ... or the possibility of going through a political process, building up a Palestinian economy."
Aboul Gheit stressed that the international community _ and especially Israel _ had a responsibility to ease restrictions on Palestinian movements and support the Palestinian economy to ensure the victory of the moderates over the extremists.
"There is a lot that has to be done in order to be convincing, allowing one to lose the race. And I hope the political legitimate authority of Palestine will not lose that race," he said.
