Arabs say Israel seeks to make Abbas second Arafat
Reuters
Date: 01-17-05
By Tom Perry
CAIRO, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Arabs say Israel has seized an early opportunity to boycott new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a means to put off peace talks with the Palestinians while expanding West Bank settlements.
Israel cut all ties with Abbas after Palestinian militants killed six Israelis at a Gaza crossing point, even before he was sworn in on Saturday to replace the late Yasser Arafat.
Israel and Washington had sidelined Arafat for more than two years because they accused him of condoning and orchestrating violence, which Arafat denied.
"All the talk in the past about Arafat not being a partner for peace is now repeating itself, only replacing one Palestinian name with another," Arab League spokesman Hossam Zaki said.
"Israel is not willing to go forward. It is looking for excuses, exploiting each and every incident in order to stop any chances for progress," he said.
Abbas's election raised hopes Israeli-Palestinian peace talks would resume after four years of violence.
But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he would not meet Abbas until he reined in militant groups behind Thursday's attack.
Egyptian political analyst Diaa Rashwan said Sharon, who has given the Israeli army a free hand to strike militants in Gaza, wanted to put off talks on the main causes of the conflict.
"Sharon prefers to talk about this attack here or that attack there. But he never wants to discuss the Palestinian state, the right of return, Jerusalem," he said. "His ambition is keep the maximum that he can of the West Bank," he added.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak urged Sharon on Sunday to follow the example of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and pursue peace talks despite attacks.
"Experience says that it will never be possible that we can go on with negotiations if we say that all violence must stop," he said.
A Jordanian government spokeswoman condemned Israel's severing of ties with Abbas.
THWARTING ABBAS
Abbas has called for a ceasefire with Israel to allow talks to resume and ordered security forces to prevent militant attacks against Israelis. But militants, some warning there could be clashes with Palestinian forces, ruled out any halt to attacks before an end to what they call Israeli aggression.
Arab analysts base their conclusions about Sharon's motives on their assessment that Abbas cannot crack down on Palestinian militants by force without provoking civil war.
Egyptian political analyst Abdel Monem Said said: "They are asking for the impossible, and they know they are asking for the impossible because they undermined the infrastructure of authority in the Palestinian territories."
Sharon has said an end to "terror and violence" must precede any resumption of peace talks under a U.S.-backed peace plan charting a course to a Palestinian state.
He is planning to withdraw Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip this year, but he has made clear Israel plans to keep large chunks of the West Bank.
"The problem is Sharon and his expansionist plans and not the intentions of Mahmoud Abbas," Talal Suleiman wrote in Lebanon's al-Safir newspaper. Through his Gaza withdrawal plan, Sharon aimed to hide his aim of annexing the West Bank through settlement expansion, he said.
"Sharon has not and will never be close to taking a step towards any settlement which does not imply a complete surrender to his terms, greed and terrorism," al-Khaleej newspaper in the United Arab Emirates wrote in an editorial.
Washington, key to driving forward Middle East peace, has swung behind Israel and called on Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, to bring the militants under control.
It was essential for Washington to look at the fundamental causes of the conflict if it was to be solved, Abdel Wahab Badrakhan wrote in the Saudi-owned pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper.
"Otherwise the mentality of the 'war on terror' is again a candidate for a deliberate thwarting of Abu Mazen as it was a deliberate thwarting for Arafat to justify besieging him and annulling him as a partner in peace negotiations," he wrote. (Additional reporting by Ghaida Ghantous in Dubai, Fiona O'Brien in Beirut and Dina al-Wakeel in Amman)
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