KHARTOUM, March 29: Arab leaders on Wednesday rejected any attempt by the government of Israeli premier-elect Ehud Olmert to fix the Jewish state’s borders if it is unable to negotiate for peace with the Palestinians.
They also expressed support for the nearly bankrupt Palestinian Authority (PA) as it comes under the control of Hamas, but turned a deaf ear to the radical group’s pleas for more money to avert a humanitarian crisis.
In a declaration at the conclusion of its annual summit in Khartoum, the 22-member Arab League said they rejected ‘Israeli measures including... fixing Israel’s borders unilaterally in a way that fulfils its expansionist greed’.
Mr Olmert has left the door open to a negotiated settlement, but said Israel will act on its own if need be and fix its borders by 2010, effectively annexing swathes of the occupied West Bank.
But the Arab leaders said the action would ‘render impossible the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state’, which has been promised under an internationally-drafted peace plan.
“We fully support the Palestinian Authority in attempting to protect national unity and call upon the international community to respect the will of the Palestinian people,” they said.
Mr Olmert has already vowed to sever all ties with the Hamas-led government, sworn in by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday, and Israel is withholding millions of dollars in duties collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
The United States and the European Union have also threatened to slash their aid unless Hamas, which advocates the destruction of Israel, adopts a more moderate position.
The dire situation has left the moderate Abbas striving to reach out to Israel and the international community in order to keep the peace process alive and save the Palestinian Authority from financial ruin.
Mr Abbas called for a negotiated peace and said Mr Olmert must rethink his plans.
“What is most important is the policy of the new government which will probably be a coalition. It should change its attitude and adopt a policy based on a negotiated peace and international law.”
But Hamas’s Damascus-based supremo Khaled Meshaal warned that the price of peace was a full Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian land.
“The price to pay is the complete withdrawal from the occupied territories, the immediate end of violence and recognition of the legitimate rights of Palestinians,” he told France’s Le Figaro newspaper.
If Israel evacuated the West Bank and the eastern sector of occupied Al Quds, recognised refugees’ right of return and dismantled its separation barrier, ‘I can guarantee to you that Hamas and behind it, all the Palestinians, will be ready for serious steps based on justice and equity with a view to permanent peace with the Israelis’.
