Arafat ally backs 'negotiations'

Jason Burke and Conal Urquhart
Sunday December 26, 2004
The Observer

The front-running candidate to succeed Yasser Arafat as leader of the Palestinians pledged a commitment to 'the path of negotiation' in the opening speech of his campaign yesterday.
Mahmoud Abbas's statement will be seen as a boost for Tony Blair's recent commitment to kick-starting the stalled peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

Abbas, the interim Palestinian leader, also pledged to fulfil Palestinian dreams of statehood, calling on Israel to withdraw from all territories occupied after the 1967 war and to release political prisoners. He told cheering crowds of supporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah that 'we must end the occupation. We cannot compromise on Jerusalem'.

Blair travelled to the Middle East last week to secure support for a conference to be held in London early next year which will focus on reform of the corrupt and inefficient administration of the Palestinian Authority and building institutions which will help Palestinian leaders meet key Israeli demands on an end to terrorism. Israel is not expected to attend the meeting - though the American Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is expected to be there.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1379774,00.html

effort to restart Israeli/Palestinian peace negotiations, an issue which is top priority in Britain. Blair, once very popular in Britain, expended all his "political capital" by joining Bush*'s Iraq war, and expects something in return. But, despite what he says now, Arafat was not the real reason for Bush*'s reluctance to become engaged in the world's greatest crisis. He ignored Israel/Palestine because this was a "Clinton issue," as was the threat posed by North Korea and that posed by Osama bin Laden, which he also completely ignored, and to our peril.