CAIRO: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict requires a two-state solution, the Arab League and Egypt reaffirmed on Thursday, distancing themselves from a move away from that commitment by US President Donald Trump.
The idea of a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel has underpinned Middle East peace efforts for decades.
But the Republican president said on Wednesday after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would accept whatever peace the two sides chose, whether it entailed two states or one.
Egypt was committed to a two-state solution, a Foreign Ministry spokesman told state news agency MENA.
In comments also reported by MENA, Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit agreed, adding that moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem would make the Middle East more volatile.
“It requires a comprehensive and just settlement based on a two-state solution and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on ... 1967 borders with its capital in Jerusalem,” it quoted Aboul Gheit as saying after meeting the UN secretary-general chief Antonio Guterres in Cairo.
In Israel, Netanyahu’s far-right political allies hailed the US shift in support for a Palestinian state and shrugged off a call by Trump to curb Israeli settlements on occupied land.
Meanwhile, the UN envoy for the Middle East peace process told the Security Council that the two-state solution remains “the only way” to meet the aspirations of the Palestinians and Israelis,.
The council met to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The two-state solution remains the only way to achieve the legitimate national aspirations of both peoples,” Nickolay Mladenov told the council.
“Some may hold the illusion that the conflict can be ‘managed’ indefinitely,” Mladenov said. “That the absence of a clear strategy to advance peace is a strategy in itself.”
The envoy urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders to “carefully contemplate the future,” which he warned could be one “built on perpetual conflict, rising extremism and occupation.”
Britain, France and Sweden reaffirmed their support for a two-state solution. “It is very dangerous to move away from the two-state solution idea, especially before you have something viable as an alternative,” Sweden’s Ambassador Olof Skoog warned.
“We don’t see any viable alternative right now,” Skoog told reporters ahead of the meeting. Sweden has recognized Palestinian statehood.
British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said his government “continues to believe that the best solution for peace in the Middle East is the two-state solution.”
French Ambassador Francois Delattre echoed Mladenov’s comments, saying: “should the prospect of a Palestinian State disappear, it would open the door to more extremism and more terrorism.”
The US position on the Middle East peace process is “confused and worrying,” France’s foreign minister said after talks with his US counterpart, affirming that the only realistic option was a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Bonn that he had been partly reassured by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s assertion that sanctions on Russia over its stance in Ukraine would only be lifted if there was progress in the Minsk agreements.
He also said was a clear difference in opinion between the two allies on the Iranian nuclear deal, with the US wanting to review it from scratch.
Separately, Iran said Thursday that Israel’s atomic arsenal is the biggest danger to world peace.
Israel is the “biggest threat to the peace and security in the region and the world,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said, quoted by state news agency IRNA.
Trump had warned Wednesday after meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington that the “threat of Iran’s nuclear ambitions” was one of the major security challenges facing Israel.
The US president told reporters that he would do “more to prevent Iran from ever developing — I mean ever — a nuclear weapon.”
But Ghasemi dismissed the comments by Trump and Netanyahu comments as “nonsense.”
“The bitter truth is that these unjust claims are being repeated by the Zionist regime that doesn’t abide by any international laws and has hundreds of warheads in its atomic arsenal,” Ghasemi said, referring to Israel.
Ghasemi said the UN atomic watchdog had repeatedly confirmed the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.
Arab League: Palestinian-Israeli conflict needs two-state solution
Arab League: Palestinian-Israeli conflict needs two-state solution
Israeli justices press government on religious conscription waivers
- The Supreme Court in 2018 voided a law waiving the call-up for ultra-Orthodox men who want to study in seminaries instead
- Ultra-Orthodox claim the right to study in seminaries instead of serving in uniform for the standard three years
In the name of equality, the Supreme Court in 2018 voided a law waiving the call-up for ultra-Orthodox men who want to study in seminaries instead. Parliament failed to come up with an alternative arrangement, and a government-ordered stay on a mandatory mobilization of ultra-Orthodox expired in March.
That has left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrambling to agree with ultra-Orthodox coalition partners on a military service compromise that might preempt any Supreme Court ruling that Israel’s fasted-growing minority must be forcibly drafted.
“We’re not on quiet waters. We are at war, and the need (for military personnel) cries out,” one of nine justices hearing the case, Noam Solberg, told a government lawyer who argued that it was still too early for an ultra-Orthodox mass-conscription.
With fighting against Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza and related violence on the Lebanese border exacting the highest troop casualties in decades, many Israelis resent their fellow citizens being spared their share of the risk.
The ultra-Orthodox claim the right to study in seminaries instead of serving in uniform for the standard three years. Some say their pious lifestyles would clash with military mores, while others voice ideological opposition to the liberal state.
The ultra-Orthodox make up 13 percent of Israel’s population, a figure expected to reach 19 percent by 2035 due to their high birth rates. Economists argue that the draft exemption keeps some of them unnecessarily in seminaries and out of the workforce.
The government’s lawyer, Doron Taubman, said it placed a high priority on increasing ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
“But it is also mindful of the enormous difficulty the community sees in the drafting of seminary students, both due to the cardinal fear of their lifestyle being compromised and the fear of Bible study being compromised,” he told the court.
It was not immediately clear when the court might rule in the case, whose first hearings took place in February.
Two Lebanese shepherds killed amid ongoing escalation along Lebanon-Israel border
- State news agency: The men were civilians who used to sell sheep milk to neighboring villages
- Clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah have escalated in recent weeks
BEIRUT: Two Lebanese shepherds were killed in an Israeli strike that hit their house in the town of Houla near the Lebanon-Israel border on Sunday, state media reported.
Lebanon’s National News agency said the men were civilians who used to sell sheep milk to neighboring villages.
Lebanese Agriculture Minister Abbas Hajj Hassan said in a statement that a separate Israeli strike Sunday morning had damaged his ministry’s office in the town of Bint Jbeil, as well as the city’s commercial market and local government headquarters.
Also Sunday, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah claimed a drone attack on an Israeli military facility in the Golan Heights. It said the strike had hit a radar system for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, as well as forces operating it.
The Israeli military did not confirm damage to the radar system but said that two drones “were identified falling in open areas” and “as a result of one of them, a fire broke out adjacent to Katzrin in the Golan Heights and was extinguished shortly afterward.” It said no injuries were reported.
Clashes between Israeli forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which have taken place near-daily since October, have escalated in recent weeks.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 400 people in Lebanon, most of them militants with Hezbollah and allied groups but also including more than 70 civilians. Strikes coming from Lebanon have killed at least 10 civilians and 15 soldiers in Israel.
Western countries, in particular the US and France, have come forward with a series of proposals for a cessation of hostilities on the Lebanon-Israel border. Hezbollah has refused to enter into an agreement until a ceasefire is implemented in Gaza.
Profile of new Kuwaiti crown prince Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Sabah
- On November 2019, the emir signed an order appointing Sheikh Sabah Khaled as Prime Minister
The Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah signed an order on Saturday nominating Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah as Crown Prince.
Born in 1953, Sheikh Sabah Khaled obtained a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Kuwait University in 1977. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1978 as a diplomatic attaché, serving in the Arab Affairs Department from 1978-1983, and later joined Kuwait's Permanent Mission at the UN from 1982-1989.
Sheikh Sabah Khaled served as Kuwait's Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Permanent Representative to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation from 1995-1998, participating in GCC ministerial meetings during this period. He was appointed head of the Kuwait National Security Bureau at the rank of minister in 1998.
He was named Minister of Social Affairs and Labor in July 2006 and in March 2007, and served as Information Minister between May 2008 and January 2009. Sheikh Sabah Khaled was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2011 and later named Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs in February 2012.
In December 2012, he was named Prime Deputy Minister and Foreign Minister. In January 2014, Sheikh Sabah Khaled was named First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, retaining the post in December 2016 and again in December 2017.
On November 2019, the emir signed an order appointing Sheikh Sabah Khaled as Prime Minister and another order to address him as Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah. On December 14, 2020, Kuwait's late emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah assigned Sheikh Sabah Khaled to form his second government and assigned him to form his third government on March 2, 2021. The late emir accepted Sheikh Sabah Khaled's resignation on November 18, 2021. The late emir then signed a decree assigning Sheikh Sabah Khaled to form the country's 39th government and his fourth.
Sheikh Sabah Khaled has received several prestigious awards: Saudi Arabia's late King Fahad awarded him the King Abdulaziz Order of the first class in 1998; former Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir awarded him the Two Niles Order in 2012; Senegalese President Macky Sall awarded him the National Order of the Lion in 2015; and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas awarded him the Al-Quds Star Order in 2018.
Two Palestinian teens killed by Israeli gunfire in West Bank, Palestinian officials say
- A 16- and a 17-year-old were killed west of Aqabat Jaber refugee camp, near the West Bank city of Jericho
JERUSALEM: Two Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli gunfire in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday.
The Israeli military did not confirm the deaths but said two suspects hurled explosives toward a local community, endangering civilians, and troops responded with live fire.
“Hits were identified,” the military said in a statement.
The Palestinian health ministry said a 16- and a 17-year-old were killed west of Aqabat Jaber refugee camp, near the West Bank city of Jericho.
Palestinian media said medicals teams were prevented from reaching one of the wounded and the other succumbed to his wounds on Sunday in a hospital in Jerusalem. One teen was shot in the head and the other in his chest, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The occupied West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state along with Gaza, has seen a surge in violence since the start of the war in Gaza last year, and a major crackdown by Israeli security forces which have made thousands of arrests.
UAE president, Qatar ruler discuss US president’s Gaza peace plan
- The two leaders agreed that civilians in Gaza must be protected in accordance with rules of international humanitarian law
DUBAI: UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan welcomed the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, who arrived in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
The two rulers reviewed a number of regional and international issues, particularly the current humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip during their meeting, stressing the importance of intensifying efforts for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the besieged enclave and providing protection.
They agreed that civilians in Gaza must be protected in accordance with rules of international humanitarian law, in addition to strengthening the response to their deteriorating humanitarian conditions.
The two sides also touched on the proposals presented by US Joe Biden regarding the crisis in the Gaza Strip.
They also affirmed support for all serious initiatives and endeavors that push towards stopping the escalation in the region, protecting the lives of all civilians ending suffering in the Gaza Strip, and pushing towards a clear political horizon for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace that is based on the ‘two-state solution’ and preserves the security and stability of the region.
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, vice president, deputy prime minister and chairman of the Presidential Court, and Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and chairman of Abu Dhabi Executive Council, were among the top UAE dignitaries who earlier accompanied their ruler for Sheikh Tamim’s arrival, state news agency WAM reported.
Sheikh Tamim meanwhile was accompanied by Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the emir’s personal representative, prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, along with a number of ministers and top officials.
