French led peace initiative: Arab League debates Israel-Palestine conflict

By Dr. Abdul Ruff

When the international media outlets flashed the news about a French sponsored peace conference to find a credible solution to the Mideast crisis, denying the Palestinians a home of their own to improve their life conditions, world looked at the new development with a lot of hopes.

An international peace conference, sponsored by France, will take place in Paris on 3 June, a move that was welcomed by the Palestinians and opposed by the Israelis who fear if they let the besieged Palestinians make a fully independent state, it would lose the aid and all military support from USA and EU and it won’t be able to make false complaints about Palestinians.  Earlier this year, the French government began efforts to host an international conference planned for this summer to restore peace talks between Palestinian and Israeli authorities. It also vowed to recognize a Palestinian state if peace talks failed.

However, in order to promote peace in the region, neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis have been invited to the first phase of the process, in which more than 20 ministers will gather in Paris to discuss ways to jump-start negotiations that have been frozen for more than two years.

Arab conclave

Recently the Arab nations converged in Cairo to discuss the new developments regarding establishment of Palestine state and the problems affecting peace development in Mideast.

Foreign ministers from the Arab League states met on May 28 in Cairo for a heated debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, as their preparation for the international conference to be held in Pairs this week. After the failure of USA to successfully and honestly mediate between Palestinians and Israeli regime, France has decided to mediate for a possible quick solution to the vexed and most complicated international problem, causing continued blood bath in Palestine due to Israeli terror attacks as its birth right. .

The 22 Arab League members were all present at the Cairo extraordinary meeting including representatives from Palestine and the Libya Unity Government. The Cairo meeting stressed the latest development between Israel and Palestine and deliberated on how the Arab countries could make contributions to reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at the international conference in Pairs.

Arab ministries of foreign affairs are supporting the French initiative to revive the peace talks between Palestine and Israel and have urged for an established timeframe for the talks. Participants agreed that they would use the 2002 Arab peace initiative as the basis for negotiation and demand total pullout by Israel from all the Arab territories it has occupied since 1967. The participants also agreed on working with Israel and Palestine to accept the two-state solution for peaceful coexistence. According to the Palestinian envoy, Abbas updated Arab foreign ministers on the recent developments of the Palestinian issue and meet with the Arab League’s Secretary General Nabil Arabi.

The final statement of the Arab ministries’ urgent meeting put an emphasis on creating a multi-sided way to end the Israeli occupation and establish the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s arrival in Cairo closely follows a visit by an Israel Foreign Ministry delegation, which the ministry said was there for a routine meeting with their counterparts.  Abbas said that Palestine will participate in the international peace conference if it aims to achieve the vision of the two states. Abbas added that the negotiation should have a known timeframe. Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Araby said the aim is not to bring the two parties together but rather to identify a timeframe and techniques to impose what they will agree on.

The Palestinian news agency Ma’an speculated that Israeli officials were in Cairo hoping to organize a tripartite meeting between PM Netanyahu, President Abbas and General Sisi ahead of the June 3 meeting in Paris. Its agenda having been failed, Israel has denied this report.  Meanwhile, Sara Netanyahu, wife of the Israeli prime minister and a favorite for criticism and ridicule in local media, is now facing scrutiny by legal authorities after the police recommended indicting the first lady for her actions in three separate affairs relating to the running of the Prime Minister’s Residences. Each of the irregularities being investigated appears to have in common the spending of government funds for personal benefit by the Netanyahu family.

According to a Channel 10 report aired earlier this week, moderate Arab governments in the region have communicated to Netanyahu their willingness to engage in negotiations with Israel over possible changes to a 2002 Arab peace initiative so it may serve as the agreed-upon basis of renewed talks with the Palestinians.   Arab regimes led by Egypt and the wealthy Gulf sheikdoms have signaled their desire to publicly change their posture toward Israel. But, according to Channel 2, Sisi, who had called out equally to Israelis and Palestinians to make peace, is strengthening his ties with Abbas now that Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman who is known to be a hawkish anti-Palestine illegal settler leader has joined the government as defence minister.

Arrogance and ultra fanaticism 

Clearly, fanatic and criminal minded Israel does not want an independent and soverign Palestine to emerge in West Asia and it obstructs it by all terror tactics, including bogus talk.  Peace and prosperity is the last thing Israel wants in Palestine or in Mideast.  Jewish strategists in Israel and USA think if Palestine is legally established leading to a peaceful and safe Mideast region, Israel won’t be able kill Palestinians as freely as they do now or expand its fake territories on false claims and western military strength.  Also, the USA would drop Israel as a finished case.  This may be untenable and unacceptable for the Jews.

English educated but highly fanatic Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu commented on the French initiative saying that the only way to progress is to conduct direct negotiations with Palestinians. Israel wants to impose its own laws and dictates on Palestinians and USA.

Egypt will participate in the Paris conference, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry. “We hope that the conference will revive the first steps in the negotiations track between Palestine and Israel,” Shoukry added. President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said Monday that Egypt will support any initiative that asserts that rights of the Palestinian people. He also called on both sides to take advantage of this opportunity to achieve a peaceful solution.

Though it does not have any real intention of letting Palestinians establish a soverign nation, Israel falsely insists it alone can negotiate with Palestinians and no mediators are necessary. The Israeli side expressed earlier its concerns over the conference as Netanyahu told the French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault that Israel still opposes holding an international conference on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. “I told him the only way to advance genuine peace between us and Palestinians is through direct negotiations between us and them, without preconditions,” said Netanyahu.

Unity deficit

The lack of unity among Fatah and Hamas is considered by many to be the most pressing problem facing the Palestinian people and the primary road block to statehood. After signing six reconciliation agreements but failing to implement any tangible evidence of rapprochement, Fatah and Hamas are trying it again with a new twist: international supervision. On June 30, the two factions will meet in Geneva as guests of the Swiss Foreign Ministry along with representatives from the Quartet (United States; United Nations, European Union and Russia), Sweden, Norway, China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in an attempt to find the formula for ending the bifurcation between the Fatah-controlled West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The key goals could be to unite Fatah and strengthen it against Hamas, weaken Hamas, complete a peace agreement with Israel and seize control of sovereign Palestinian institutions in the West Bank.

Of the failed agreements signed but not implemented, it is the Cairo Agreement of 2014 that will be the focus for implementation. Unlike the French initiative to reconcile the Israelis and Palestinians that is set to kick-off with a preliminary conference of foreign ministers in early June, the USA is not planning to attend in Geneva. The post Fatah, Hamas would try new reconciliation with international mediation.

The United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan are reportedly planning to have former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan replace Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Citing unnamed senior Palestinian and Jordanian sources, Middle East Eye reported Friday on the joint plan to bring Dahlan, the former leader of Abbas’ Fatah party in the Gaza Strip, back from exile in the Gulf. The plan was discussed with Israel, according to the article, which did not indicate Israel’s reaction.

Fatah leader Dahlan, a bitter rival of Abbas, was driven from Gaza after Hamas seized control of the coastal enclave in 2007. In 2011, he was expelled from Fatah amid allegations of corruption and accusations that he had poisoned longtime Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat. Abbas, 81, has headed the Palestinian Authority since 2005. Dahlan who is 54 and headed the Palestinian police in Gaza in the immediate aftermath of the 1993 Oslo Accords, “has close ties to” the UAE’s royals, according to the Middle East Eye.

Sources say Hamas is weaker than Fatah in Gaza and that Fatah is weaker than Hamas in the West Bank and that Fatah could win if it were to be united whereas Hamas is likely to win if Fatah remained disunited. The parties -the UAE, Jordan and Egypt – believe that Mahmoud Abbas has expired politically and that they should endeavor to stop any surprises by Abbas during the period when Fatah will remain under his leadership until the elections are held.  According to a report, Jordan has concerns about Dahlan, however, namely his reputation for being unpopular among Palestinians and allegations that he is corrupt and has ties to the Israeli security services.

Once Palestinians get united they would get a soverign state to plan for better future for the ir children and as such they would be busy making Palestine an Islamic democracy which would be free from corruption and liquor.

Observation

Israel has been systematically disallowing peace to  take charge in West Asia; it arm-twister USA not to push beyond certain point as Americans are duty bound to shield the Zionist crimes by their own choice; Israel used USA to object to Russian proposal for peace talks;  it attacked the  aidship from Turkey seeking to make Gaza strip  trouble free.  Israel does not allow any foreign dignitary to visit Gaza Strip of Palestine. Israel collects taxes form Palestine and uses it as a powerful blackmail tool to force Palestinians to keep fighting amongst themselves, killing each other.

So, Israel opposes the involvement of a veto power France in the world’s longest conflict.

The Israeli side seems to be afraid of any international intervention that may dictate terms. Israel replied formally last month on the French initiative saying that anything other than bilateral negotiations “will give the Palestinians an escape from recognising Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people”.

Peace talks between Palestinians and an arrogant and Israel unwilling for any peaceful settlement stalled following the collapse of a US-led initiative two years ago as it wants to kill every Palestinians and throw the body into the sea as the Jewish hawkish leaders have declared time and again..

Colonialist Israel occupies Palestine and considers its prerogative to deal with people of Palestine, even their children the way the military wants, brutally treating the Palestinians by creating terror blockades blocking Gaza people to move freely within Palestine territories and, worse, to let them go out of Palestine even for urgent and important matters. Israeli military, backed by pentagon, regulates the movement of Palestinians.

Yet Israel also calls itself a modern democracy.  Perhaps, by democracy Israel means the illegal nukes it has obtained from the USA and allies.

How can a terrorist, fascist nation be a democracy as well?

Hopefully the France sponsored peace conference would yield fruits, pawing way for constructive dialog for speedy establishment of much delayed Palestine state. Other veto members should join France in pushing for a settlement of the dispute cum crisis in Mideast.

Let a new peaceful era dawn in Mideast with the establishment of Palestine that would in turn help establish global peace in a better manner.  Let Israel be willing to make a soverign Palestine state possible by wholeheartedly supporting the Palestinians who has lost thousands of their brethren in bloody battles, defending themselves with a powerful enemy who is backed by veto and fellow nuke powers. . .