PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas announced during a meeting in Cairo on Saturday that the focus of the Paris International Peace Conference would be centred on international resolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Arab Peace Initiative, the Roadmap for Peace, and previously signed agreements between the two parties.
The conference is a meeting of supporters set to take place at the start of June to prepare for the launch of the multilateral peace initiative. During a speech at a meeting of Arab Ministers of Foreign Affairs at the Arab League, Abbas said that the upcoming meeting would be an important time to garner Arab and international support for the self-determination of the Palestinian people and to find a just solution for Palestinian refugees, while setting the foundation for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on 1967 borders.
President Abbas added that East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel since 1967, would be the capital of Palestine, while rejecting Israeli concepts of ‘temporary borders’ for a new Palestinian state.
‘We have previously recognised the state of Israel but we will not accept or recognise the terms of a Jewish state. We demand a Palestinian state on Palestinian lands and we will not allow any Israeli presence inside Palestinian territory,’ President Abbas said.
The president pointed out that several European countries have already recognised a state of Palestine. ‘We hope that Arab efforts to support Palestinian self-determination will boost recognition of a Palestinian state, especially since dozens of European parliaments have presented recommendations to their governments to recognise the state of Palestine,’ the president added.
President Abbas also announced a potential national unity government, stating several reconciliation sessions led Palestinian factions to decide that holding elections would be the only way to unite the Palestinian political landscape.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rejected the French initiative in April, saying the ‘best way to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestinians is through direct, bilateral negotiations,’ and instead voiced his support for Egyptian President Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi’s trilateral initiative aiming to bring Israeli and Palestinian leaders face to face and create steps towards the unification of Palestinian political factions.
However, the Palestinian Ambassador to Egypt, Jamal al-Shubaki, emphasised on Thursday that Egypt’s initiative would not contradict the French initiative and would not act as a substitute for French-led peace talks planned for late May or early June.
Netanyahu reiterated his opposition this week to France’s efforts to organise a peace conference, which will reportedly aim for the establishment of a future Palestinian state along 1967 borders and a shared capital of Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority, however, has expressed hope for the French initiative, and in April shelved the submission of a new anti-settlement resolution to the UN out of fear that doing so could thwart progress of new French proposals. The peace initiative is expected to exclude Israeli and Palestinian leaders until a larger summit is held on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the fall.
All past efforts towards peace negotiations have failed to end the decades-long Israeli military occupation or bring Palestinians closer to an independent contiguous state. The most recent spate of negotiations led by the US collapsed in April 2014. Israel claimed the process failed because the Palestinians refused to accept a US framework document outlining the way forward, while Palestinians pointed to Israel’s ongoing settlement building and the government’s refusal to release veteran prisoners.
l Israel and its allies, including the UAE, Egypt and Jordan, are reportedly planning to overthrow Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and replace him with a former leader of the Fatah movement. The UAE has already held talks with Tel Aviv about the initiative for Mohammed Dahlan’s comeback, the online news portal Middle East Eye quoted unidentified Palestinian and Jordanian sources as saying.
The three Arab countries will inform Saudi Arabia once they reach an agreement the final version of their plan, according to the report. ”The parties 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,’ a senior Palestinian official said.
‘It is within this framework that they stress “on the necessity of pushing Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) to appoint a deputy”,’ the source added. Viewed as an archrival to Abbas, Dahlan was expelled from the Abbas-led Fatah movement in 2011. He was accused of corruption and defamation, charges he denies. The politician lives in exile in the UAE.
‘Dahlan believes that two options are available for accomplishing this: either Abu Mazen resigns, and this is unlikely, or that Jordan would lead the reconciliation between Dahlan and Abbas under the banner of bolstering Fatah,’ the source added.
The key objectives of the scheme for ousting Abbas include uniting Fatah, weakening the Hamas resistance movement, completing the so-called peace agreement with Israel and seizing control of sovereign Palestinian institutions in the West Bank, the report said.
The initiative was corroborated by a senior Jordanian source who revealed a visit by Dahlan to the Jordanian capital, Amman, on March 31, during which the Palestinian figure requested Jordanian intervention to reconcile him with Abbas.
• Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ayoub Kara has acknowledged that he paid a clandestine visit to Syria’s Aleppo, which is under the control of foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists. The Syrian army and its allies have been fighting to wrest control of the country’s second city from terrorists who have reportedly received advanced weapons in recent weeks.
Kara did not say when his visit took place, saying ‘I won’t get into it,’ the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. ‘Aleppo today is abandoned… Today when you enter it, you won’t even think that it’s Aleppo. It doesn’t even remind you of Aleppo,’ he said instead.
Late last month, Syrian officials and locals confiscated a vehicle loaded with Israeli-manufactured weapons in the southern province of Suwayda. A military source told Syria’s official news agency SANA that the vehicle was travelling from the eastern countryside of Dara’a to the desert region of Badiya.
Anti-personnel landmines, RPG rounds and launchers, B9 shells, 120 mm, 80 mm and 60 mm mortars, grenades and 23 mm machine-gun rounds were among the confiscated weapons. Syria says Israel and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups operating inside the Arab country.
The Syrian army has frequently said it had seized Israeli-made weapons and advanced military equipment from the foreign-backed militants. Israel’s Channel 2 television network recently reported that wounded militants are transferred quietly into the occupied territories for medication and that the number has surpassed 2,100 since 2011.
