Palestinians welcome initiative, but Israelis flatly reject it
17 November 2006, Daily Star staff
France, Spain and Italy pushed Thursday for a new Middle East peace plan, including an international conference, in a move welcomed by the Palestinian Authority but promptly rejected by Israel. On the Palestinian domestic front, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and President Mahmoud Abbas plan to meet this month to iron out problems preventing the formation of a unity government, a senior Hamas official said on Thursday.
Spanish Premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero proposed a five-point blueprint for peace during talks with French President Jacques Chirac. They later spoke to Italy’s prime minister.
The plan calls for: an immediate cease-fire, exchange of prisoners and an international peace conference, while also backing a prospective Palestinian unity government and a fact-finding mission to the Palestinian territories, Zapatero said.
“We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes,” Zapatero told a news conference during talks with Chirac.
“We want to launch a joint initiative on the Middle East situation and push it through at European Union level, preferably with Germany and Britain,” the prime minister said. “We are working with Solana to mobilize all the diplomatic and political resources we need.”
Eventually, a major international conference on Middle East peace should be held, Zapatero said. Spain hosted a landmark peace conference in 1991 that laid the groundwork for the Oslo accords.
Zapatero said they wanted to bring their proposal to an EU summit in December, adding that “observation forces” could be sent to monitor any truce.
Chirac for his part said the EU had to act in the face of “the increasingly dramatic situation in the Middle East and in Palestine in particular.” Chirac offered France’s full support to the initiative, the biggest international project Zapatero has launched since taking power in 2004.
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the initiative.
“We salute the idea of organizing an international peace conference on the Middle East, especially as the ‘road map’ makes provision for holding such a conference,” spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said.
But a senior Israeli official rejected it outright.
“The announcement by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is hasty,” said the Foreign Ministry official, adding that Israel was “appalled by such naivety” from the Spanish premier. [More]