Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday urged US president-elect Barack Obama to get involved in Middle East peacemaking immediately after becoming US president, and to endorse a pan-Arab plan that offers Israel recognition in return for a withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
The “Arab Peace Initiative” was first proposed in 2002 by dozens of Arab countries that didn’t have ties with Israel. It requires Israel to leave the lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East War.
“We ask Obama to become immediately involved in the peace process, and to adopt the Arab initiative,” Abbas said at a conference in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Palestinians fired three rockets from Gaza at Israel after dark on Saturday, but one fell back on the Palestinian side of the border and the other two landed in open ground, causing no casualties, the military said.
Hamas security officials said an Israeli surface-to-surface missile struck waste ground in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun shortly afterward, but caused no injuries. The military said troops fired at, and hit, a squad of Palestinians that had already fired at least one rocket and was preparing to launch more. The army did not divulge the type of fire it used.
There has been a spate of Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes since a truce between the sides started unraveling on Nov. 4.
Since then Israel has shut its crossings with Gaza, causing shortages of basic goods and fuel for Gaza’s 1.4 million Palestinians. It says the closure will continue until the militants halt their fire.
Abbas’ appeal to Obama came after he took his case for a peace deal directly to the Israeli public. On Thursday, he ran full-page Hebrew-language newspaper ads telling readers the Arab plan would bring peace to the region.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the chief negotiator with the Palestinians over the past year, has welcomed the plan as a positive gesture but says its positions on key issues such as final borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees are unacceptable.
Of the Arab countries that border Israel, only Egypt and Jordan have so far recognized Israel. Accepting the Arab plan, Abbas said, would give Israel full recognition by 57 Arab and Islamic states.
“Instead of living in an island of peace it will live in an ocean of peace,” he said.
However, a year of negotiations between Palestinians and Israel has not brought tangible results.
Abbas appeared unusually bitter on Saturday, saying that Israel’s actions, such as continued construction of settlements and the West Bank separation barrier, contradict Israel’s declared willingness to make peace.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the