AMMAN: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in New York with the aim of convincing the world that Palestinians genuinely want peace through negotiations but that future talks should not be led solely by the US.
During his speech at the UN Security Council on Tuesday, he clearly succeeded in the first aim, but the second remains elusive.
Khalil Jahshan, executive director of the Arab Center Washington DC, told Arab News that Abbas “drove home the point of Palestinians wanting peace through negotiations, but this was a speech that should have been made 10 years ago.”
But he said the perception of Abbas’ departure before the Israeli and American ambassadors to the UN addressed the council was not encouraging.
“I concede he lost that small PR battle, but what is needed is substantive results and that doesn’t look good,” Jahshan said.
In his 33-minute address to the Security Council, the Palestinian president succeeded in reflecting the Palestinian desire for peace through negotiations.
Using the term “negotiations” 15 times, Abbas drove home Palestinian willingness to negotiate a peace deal. But the jury is still out on whether he succeeded in convincing the US and Israel to allow any other international party to co-chair future peace efforts.
Abbas came to New York after a global tour that took him to major European, Asian and African capitals with the aim of convincing major world powers to create a new peace formula.
The official Fatah spokesman and former UN envoy, Nasser Al-Qudwa, said Palestinians will accept any approach, except one with the US solely in charge.
“We can live with different formats, with P5, P5+, we can live with expanded quartet, and we can live with an international peace conference — anything that can do the job, provide the reasonable basis for negotiations, follow up the process, and sponsor it until it successfully concludes,” he said.
Anees Sweidan, head of external relations in the PLO, told Arab News that the US was not interested in peace talks. “They want to dictate an agreement and not to actually conduct talks about it.”
Abbas had managed 65 days without any face-to-face meetings with US officials following President Trump’s Dec. 4 announcement that the US embassy would be moved to Jerusalem, a decision that angered Palestinian, Arab and global leaders.
During this period the Palestinian Central Council sharply reduced contact with Israel on economic and security matters.
Following his speech, an unhappy Abbas left the Security Council hall without waiting to hear from the US or Israel.
After attacking Abbas and Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, and siding only with the suffering of the Israelis, the US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said that the American negotiating team is ready to talk but that the US will not seek out the Palestinians.
Israel’s UN representative Danny Danon criticized the Palestinian leader, saying that all Abbas had to do was travel 12 minutes to meet the Israelis instead of traveling 12 hours by plane to New York.
Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister and current vice president of studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Affairs, told Arab News that Abbas has taken a difficult path by insisting on peace talks while rejecting the US as sole arbiter.
“While some might argue that the Americans are the only game in town in as far as the ability to get Israel to engage, it is clear Abu Mazen (Abbas) is not ready to play,” he said.
Abbas has stuck with the negotiations track and the UN, even though “we all know that it will be futile,” Muasher added.
Abbas treads a difficult path in bid to thwart US peace role
Abbas treads a difficult path in bid to thwart US peace role
Israeli military finds bodies of 3 hostages in Gaza, including Shani Louk, killed at music festival
The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter
JERUSALEM: Israeli military says its troops in Gaza found the bodies of three Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack, including German-Israeli Shani Louk.
A photo of the 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world and brought to light the scale of the militants’ attack on communities in southern Israel.
The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said all three were killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival, an outdoor dance party near the Gaza border, and their bodies taken into the Palestinian territory.
The military did not give immediate details on where their bodies were found.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. Around half of those have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong ceasefire in November.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more. Israel’s campaign in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
Iran arrests 3 Europeans at ‘Satanist’ gathering along with 260 others, Tasnim says
- Those detained comprised 146 men and 115 women and that alcohol and psychedelic drugs were seized.
DUBAI: Iranian security forces have arrested more than 260 people, including three European nationals, at a “Satanist” gathering west of the capital Tehran, the semi-official new agency Tasnim reported on Friday.
“Satanist network broken up in Tehran, arrests of three European nationals,” Tasnim wrote, adding that those detained comprised 146 men and 115 women and that alcohol — banned under Iran’s Islamic laws — and psychedelic drugs were seized.
The report did not give the nationality of the Europeans.
Spain PM will Wednesday announce date to recognize Palestinian state
- Sanchez said in March that Spain and Ireland, along with Slovenia and Malta had agreed to take the first steps toward recognition of a Palestinian state
MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Friday he will on Wednesday announce the date on which Madrid will recognize a Palestinian state along with other nations.
“We are in the process of coordinating with other countries,” he said during an interview with private Spanish television station La Sexta when asked if this step would be taken on Tuesday as announced by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Sanchez said in March that Spain and Ireland, along with Slovenia and Malta had agreed to take the first steps toward recognition of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, seeing a two-state solution as essential for lasting peace.
Borrell told Spanish public radio last week that Spain, Ireland and Slovenia planned to symbolically recognize a Palestinian state on May 21, saying he had been given this date by Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares.
Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said Tuesday that Dublin was certain to recognize Palestinian statehood by the end of the month but the “specific date is still fluid.”
So far, 137 of the 193 UN member states have recognized a Palestinian state, according to figures provided by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
Despite the growing number of EU countries in favor of such a move, neither France nor Germany support the idea. Western powers have long argued such recognition should only happen as part of a negotiated peace with Israel.
Israel army says civilians torched Gaza-bound aid truck in West Bank
- Driver as well as Israel soldiers were injured in the attack
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Friday that “dozens of Israeli civilians” set fire the previous evening to an aid truck in the occupied West Bank headed for war-torn Gaza.
Local media reported that Israeli settlers were behind the attack, which the army said injured the driver as well as Israeli soldiers.
The incident took place near Kokhav Hashahar, an Israeli settlement in the central West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
According to the army, Israeli soldiers intervened to “separate the Israeli civilians from the attacked Israeli driver” and provided medical assistance.
The group then “responded with violence,” and three Israeli soldiers were “lightly injured,” the army said, condemning “all forms of violence against its soldiers and security forces.”
On Monday, dozens of people blocked and vandalized a convoy of aid trucks driving to the Gaza Strip.
Israeli media identified them as part of a far-right group opposed to allowing aid into Gaza.
The trucks were attacked in Israel, shortly after passing through the Tarqumiya checkpoint from the West Bank.
Images posted on social media show Israeli soldiers watching on as the attackers destroy the aid.
The latest incident comes just hours after the army said on Thursday that the Tarqumia and Beitunia checkpoints “now also function as inspection points for aid” destined for Gaza.
Jordanian authorities said “Israeli extremists” in the West Bank attacked two aid convoys sent on May 1 from Jordan and another convoy of 35 trucks sent on May 7.
Israel has been fighting their bloodiest war ever in Gaza since the Palestinian militants attacked Israel on October 7.
Despite the United Nations warning of looming famine, Israeli authorities have tightly controlled much needed humanitarian aid into Gaza over the course of more than seven months of war.
Very little aid has made it through Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza, and Rafah crossing has been completely shut since Israeli troops took control of the area last week.
Israel has vowed to defeat remaining Hamas forces in the southern city of Rafah, which it says is the last bastion of the group whose October 7 attack triggered the war.
The Hamas attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
More than 35,303 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the war broke out, according to data provided by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Saudi Arabia, UAE ‘the locomotives of the region’ says French trade commissioner
- Vision Golfe returns for a second edition June 4-5 at the French Ministry of Economy in Paris
- The benchmark event between France and the Gulf countries aims to promote trade and economic relations
DUBAI: After the success of its first edition, Vision Golfe returns for a second edition June 4-5 at the Ministry of Economy, Finance, Industry and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty in Paris.
The benchmark event between France and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries aims to promote trade and economic relations, building on a long-standing relationship between France and the GCC states, particularly between France and Saudi Arabia.
“Between France and the GCC countries … we have a long story of friendship. We build bridges together based on mutual comprehension, respect, mutual interest, ambition, and our political bilateral relation is absolutely at the top,” said Axel Baroux, trade and invest commissioner of Business France Middle East, in an interview with Arab News in French.
“We have a great and solid commercial and investment relationship, but I think that we can do even more,” he added.
Vision Golfe is a platform to promote business cooperation in markets with high growth potential, and an opportunity to meet key economic players: ministers, start-ups, and senior executives, among others.
“Vision Golfe is a tool, the starting point for negotiations and discussions. Discussions continue throughout the year … our trade and investment grew last year by almost 8 percent,” declared Baroux.
“If I take the figures of the GCC investment in France, we are reaching €14 billion ($15.178 billion) which is exactly €13.7 billion,” he added, while pointing out that the figure is underestimated for not considering indirect investments.
Despite the challenges facing the global economy, Gulf countries continue to offer an environment conducive to investment and talent attraction, leveraging national policies focused on economic diversification, sustainable development, and energy transition.This creates a favourable atmosphere for the establishment of companies in various sectors such as energy and new technologies, as well as sectors such as healthcare, education, retail, and tourism.
As the two largest markets in a region marked by considerable growth in trade, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are today “the locomotives of the region,” Baroux says.
This explains the rise in French companies setting up operations and participating in major projects and trade in the Gulf.
Baroux highlighted his participation in a delegation of French companies in Saudi Arabia, with over 120 companies taking part in the event organized by Business France and the MEDEF, in the presence of the director general of Business France, Laurent Saint Martin, French foreign trade advisors, and Bruno Bonnell, the secretary-general for Investment FRANCE 2030.
“We were admirably received. Agreements were signed with STC and Business France. We also visited the PIF, and had discussions with MISA,” he added.
The UAE also offers opportunities for French companies across sectors, with “more than 600 French companies on ground … Translating into direct employment, projects and a solid economic relationship,” according to Baroux.
“We have very strong, very solid bilateral economic relations between France and the GCC and it is a reason why we expect Vision Golfe to be the annual rendez-vous, the annual meeting, where all the companies from the GCC and from France can meet together in Paris,” he added.
HIGHLIGHTS
It aims to present success stories of major partnerships that contribute to the strategies of Gulf countries.
The program includes an opening speach by Business France CEO Laurent Saint Martin, in the presence of ministers from France and the GCC, and a panel addressing “The Gulf at the crossroads of Asia and Europe” to kick off two days of panels and meetings.
Thematic and sector-specific discussions and round tables are on the agenda, with topics including but not limited to:
• Converging national strategies
• Building sustainable partnerships
• How to invest and set up a business in the Gulf
• Energy for the future: sustainable energy and resource management after COP28
• Cooperation and investment opportunities in various sectors
• France as Europe’s most attractive destination for foreign direct investment
Economic diversification, innovation, artificial intelligence, infrastructure, and transport development are among the themes addressed during the second edition.
The French touch and know-how will also be in the spotlight, in the presence of a number of guests and speakers, such as Jean Yves LeDrian, chair of the French Agency for the Development of AlUla, the CEO of NIDLP Suliman Almazroua, the secretary-general of the UAE International Investors Council, Jamal Saif Al-Jarwan, with the participation of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, Mohamed Bin Zayed University, and Kuwaiti and Qatari groups to state a few.
“Vision Golfe 2023 was a real success, and of course, I expect more for Vision Golfe 2024. More B2B meetings, more partnerships, even more interaction between French companies and GCC companies. We will have this year at Vision Golfe 2024 some key agreements that will be signed, during the session,” said Baroux.
