Palestinians, Israelis reject AL peace plan: Algiers summit ends
ALGIERS, March 23: Arab leaders steered clear of the region’s most contentious issues, wrapping up a summit on Wednesday with a rehashed Middle East peace plan that Israel and Palestinian militant groups swiftly rejected. Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said in a closing statement that the summit, marred by the absence of several key players, “consolidated the bases of a durable Arab reconciliation”.
But even as he praised them for showing peaceful intentions towards Israel, Arab League chief Amr Mussa warned the Jewish state that peace would not be achieved without anything in return.
Israel “does not deserve that we extend to it our hand” in peace, Mr Mussa told a post-summit news conference, accusing the Jewish state of continuing to build settlements on Palestinian land. The meeting was marked by the leaders’ failure to tackle some of the most controversial issues facing their troubled region, including Syria’s pullout from Lebanon. Only 13 heads of states from the 22-member Arab League showed up.
Jordan’s King Abdullah, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz were among those absent.
The summit’s final declaration echoed the one released at last year’s Tunis conference, pledging Arab support for Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians to recover land occupied by Israel.
It called on the international community to help back the Arab peace initiative — a Jordanian proposal based on a Saudi plan submitted and endorsed by the 2002 Beirut summit but spurned by Israel.
Israel was quick to reject this year’s offer, which makes peace conditional on an Israeli pullout from occupied Arab land, the creation of a Palestinian state and the return of refugees.
“Based on the Arab peace initiative, Arab countries will therefore consider the Arab-Israeli conflict over and will set up normal ties with Israel within the framework of a comprehensive peace,” said the declaration.
A senior official from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office said the Arabs were trying “to give this illusion of unity on the surface by adopting resolutions that contradict with all of the advances made”.
“The summit proved it is out of touch with reality and in a delicate situation regarding developments in the Arab world,” the official added.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Hani Mulki said Israel’s “quick and negative” reaction looks as if “they are not interested in peace, and we hope this is not the case”.
Palestinian group Hamas’s spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri characterized as “the worst thing” the relaunching of an initiative to “reconcile with the enemy” and slammed the summit for failing to “take steps to support our people and put an end to the aggression they suffer”.
Islamic Jihad leader Nafez Azzam echoed him saying: “Our expectations have been disappointed by the results of the summit along with those of Arabs and Muslims.”
Arab delegates and political analysts alike agreed that the summit deliberately avoided controversy by adopting tamely-worded resolutions to show they are united.
Thus the leaders opted for prudence in dealing with hot-spots like Iraq, the civil war in the western Sudanese region of Darfur or even the nascent Lebanese crisis and UN demands that Syria pull out from that country.
There was no condemnation of the foreign occupation of Iraq that entered its third year this week, but classic words of support for Iraqi unity and independence, and Syria and Lebanon’s efforts to regain land occupied by Israel.
The summit called for emergency humanitarian aid for Sudan but failed to make any specific commitment nor did it announce any measures against League members who have failed to pay their dues to the cash-strapped organization.
They decided, however, to set up a pan-Arab summit and agreed to meet next year in Khartoum. Even the much-touted pledge they made last year to reform their countries was buried under rhetoric and vague promises. —AFP
