Special Article
Call for a Palestinian State
Bush, Blair, EU reaffirm support, Arabs welcome
By Our Staff

Bush’s speech involved “mentioning the Palestinian state by equating it with Israel and holding all parties responsible towards stopping violence,” said Prince Saud al-Faisal, quoted by Al-Hayat newspaper. “This represents a new language which affirms that the responsibility is on Israel as much as it is on the Palestinians (to stop violence). Violence does not come from Palestinians, it comes from Israel which is a fact. This is a new language,” the prince said. “The speech also called on the need to continue political dialogue without guarantees that there would be no incidents here or there….. These are three important elements, I believe they are good and important,” he said. Prince Saud was speaking after meeting with Bush in Washington the same day as the speech. The foreign minister also said he did not feel the US administration had backed down from setting principles for a peace deal.

“I feel assured (after meeting Bush) in this framework (that) they are concerned about this issue, and are awaiting for the nearest possible opportunity to announce the principles on which the US will depend,” Prince Saud said. Jordan’s King Abdullah has said the Arab world must be ready to offer a collective guarantee of Israel’s security in return for the setting up of a Palestinian state, The Times reported on November 10. The British daily said that a deal along these lines was already being discussed by the main international players including the United States, Russia, the European Union, the United Nations, Egypt and Jordan. King Abdullah said that a long-term strategy of this nature would underpin a new initiative to be launched soon by President George W. Bush’s administration in the United States.

If an agreement was reached, Israel would for the first time be offered a guarantee of its existence and security by all countries from the Gulf to Morocco. According to the plan “the Arab countries will make a statement guaranteeing the security of Israel,” King Abdullah told The Times. The king’s remarks are “exploratory” according to the daily, which said he is understood to have canvassed the idea in the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and several north African states. King Abdullah on November 9, rounded off an official three-day state visit to Britain where he held talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair at Downing Street. “To this day we don’t know what the end game is”, the king told The Times. No one yet knew what would follow the Mitchell proposals aimed at an immediate end to violence. But it was “given” that Israel would not disappear, he said.

It was not yet a given that a Palestinian state would appear. “Responsibility has to be taken on both sides of the equation.” On Mr. Bush, King Abdullah said: “He is ready to move. But, the way he describes it, he plays the presidential card, so you can’t play that card if there’s a chance of failure. “What happens if that fails? You are going to have to wait for years….. it must be 99 per cent clear, and I agree with him.” The king said while meeting members of the foreign Press in London that there was a “dramatic urgency to move on the Israeli-Palestinian” conflict. He added that the international community must “create an atmosphere where there is a definite chance of success.” The king said solving the peace process had taken on added urgency because of the September 11 terrorist assault on the United States.

Osama bin Laden, prime suspect of the attacks on New York and Washington, has said the atrocities happened because of the way Palestinians are treated at the hands of the Israelis. After meeting Mr. Blair on November 8, the king said he saw “eye to eye” with the US-led coalition against terrorism and the need for progress in the Middle East peace process. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has emphasised that the long-term strategy for eradicating terrorism requires a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Mubarak on November 10, said in his speech before the Egyptian parliament that “the American response should not be expanded to any state of the Middle East that is not linked” to the attacks of September 11. Mr. Mubarak said that “the eradication of terrorism necessitates the elimination of centres of tension in the world and particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” to which the origins of terrorism are “linked in one manner or another.”

“The Palestinian people will not give in it will continue to fight and to resist, and will not allow any Israeli interference in its sovereignty over the Arab part of Jerusalem and the holy sites” there, Mr. Mubarak added. However, the West Bank head of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement on November 11, slammed US President George Bush’s speech to the United Nations, saying his remarks were designed to hoodwink the Arab public. Marwan Barghuti, an outspoken proponent of the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, said Mr. Bush’s conditioning of US involvement in finding a solution to the 14-month crisis on an end to all violence was sidestepping the real issue. “The main aim of the speech is to mislead an deceive the Arab and Muslim world,” Mr. Barghuti told AFP. “What the United States should be doing is to end the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.” Turning Mr. Bush’s own rhetoric of the US-led anti-terror war in Afghanistan back on the US leader, Mr. Barghuti said: “We consider anyone who does not stand against the occupation as somebody who stands with terrorism.