CAIRO, May 26: The Middle East reacted with extreme scepticism on Monday to Israel’s equivocal acceptance of the so-called roadmap for peace with the Palestinians.
Politicians and newspapers ripped the Israeli cabinet’s associated refusal to accept the right of return for Palestinian refugees, a question which under the roadmap will not be discussed for several years.
In Israel itself, the press expressed strong doubts over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s commitment to pursuing the international peace plan as far as its goal of an independent Palestinian state.
“Blessed is he who believes that the ‘yes’ with reservations that emerged from the cabinet yesterday will turn into a huge wave, which will inexorably sweep after it governments and peoples and religious and political movements, and bring peace and quiet upon them,” a sarcastic Yediot Aharonot editorial said.
The Haaretz daily for its part argued that the extreme-right’s apparent desire to remain in the government coalition — despite a vote which annihilates their dream of a “Greater Israel” stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river — was suspicious.
“The decision of the National Union, National Religious Party and Likud radicals to stay in the government ... gives rise to concern that this resolution will prove to be a ploy intended only to lob the ball back into the enemy’s court,” the newspaper said.
Hardline Palestinian groups have rejected the roadmap and their attacks have continued relentlessly since the document was published four weeks ago.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades called an overnight attack on a settlement in the Gaza Strip in which an Israeli soldier was slightly wounded “our answer to the US-Zionist roadmap”.
“We welcome Israel’s acceptance of the roadmap, but the reservations raise question marks,” Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told reporters after meeting French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin in his battered Ramallah office.
Lebanon, which hosts some 376,000 of the Palestinian refugees who fled their homes or were expelled when Israel was created in 1948, rejected Israel’s terms as unacceptable.
President Emile Lahoud called the Israeli move a “manoeuvre” aimed at removing the rights of the Palestinians.
On the sidelines of the EuroMed summit in Crete, Arab League chief Amr Mussa was extremely cautious. “It’s a small step. The true test will be its (the roadmap’s) implementation,” Mr Mussa said.
“Everything depends now on the way the United States will handle the question.”
The oil and gas-rich Gulf states also had strong words for Israel.
In Qatar, Al-Raya expressed fear that Israel was engaged in a “political ruse aimed at earning time and rebuffing Western attempts to pressure it.
Israel “hasn’t made the slightest step” towards applying the peace principle in the Palestinian territories, Saudi paper Al-Nadwa said.—AFP