WASHINGTON, 30 November 2007 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that this week’s US-hosted peace conference put back “on track” prospects for an independent Palestinian state after a seven-year hiatus, as the United States pledged full support to the revived Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
US President George W. Bush made the promise Wednesday after meeting with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the White House, after the two sides committed to sealing a peace deal by the end of 2008.
Bush also thanked Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for Saudi Arabia’s participation in the conference. Commenting on Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal’s refusal to shake hands with any Israeli official during the conference, Bush said the roots of the issues in the Middle East were decades long and so it would require a long time to resolve them.
Meanwhile, Abbas told journalists in Washington a day after he and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert launched a new drive for peace that “we have got on track.”
“The result we reached makes us optimistic. We came with an aim and we think we have attained it,” he said, referring to this week’s talks.
In a joint statement Tuesday, the two leaders said: “We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008.” They agreed to tackle “all core issues without exception” in a push to create an independent Palestinian state.
Olmert too said in a newspaper interview published yesterday that failure to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians could threaten Israel’s long-term survival.
“If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (with Palestinians) ... then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished,” Olmert told the Haaretz daily.
Israel is worried Palestinians could eventually outnumber Jews if it keeps control of all the territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Olmert said that if Israel failed to agree to a two-state solution and tried to absorb Palestinians into a Jewish state without giving them equal voting rights, influential US Jewish organizations “will be the first to come out against us.”
“They will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents,” he said.
Olmert said that four years ago, when deputy to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, he had already stated Israel should withdraw from most of the land captured in 1967. “(People) will say I’m having problems and that’s why I’m trying to do (a peace process), but the facts must be dealt with justly,” Olmert said.
Olmert told Haaretz that “Annapolis is not a historic turning point, but it is a point that can be of assistance.” He added that negotiations with the Palestinians would be “difficult, complex, and will require a very great deal of patience and sophistication.” Olmert said he would have to do all he could to help Abbas deliver his part of a peace deal. “It is my job to do everything so that he receives the tools, and to reach an understanding on the guidelines for an agreement,” Olmert said.
A poll published yesterday in Haaretz found that 42 percent of Israelis believe the conference was a failure, while 17 percent thought otherwise. The rest were undecided.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that failure would lead to more violence in the region “I clearly understand that failure is not an option here,” Rice told ABC television. “And I think that the parties understand that, more importantly. But inaction’s also not an option.”
“If you do nothing to try to resolve this conflict, (if) the parties don’t try to resolve this conflict, you’re going to have years and years more of the deprivation, the humiliation of the occupation, and of the terror associated with this for the Israelis,” she said.
