In dueling op-ed pieces yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was ready to discuss a sweeping Arab peace proposal as long as it wasn't presented as a take-it-or-leave-it plan, while Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said the "catastrophic climate" in the region could not be changed unless the West engaged with his government.
The Arab peace deal, first proposed in 2002 and recently revived, offered Israel full recognition in exchange for a withdrawal from all territories it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees.
Israel has not rejected the idea but expressed reservations about a complete withdrawal and opposes resettling Palestinian refugees in Israel.
"I take the offer of full normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world seriously and I am ready to discuss the Arab peace initiative in an open and sincere manner," Olmert said in his piece in the British newspaper the Guardian, on the 40th anniversary of the war.
"But the talks must be a discussion, not an ultimatum," he said.
In his piece in the British newspaper, Haniyeh said Israel's fateful error was to "underestimate the resolve of the Palestinians" to fight the Israeli occupation.
"The first step to change this catastrophic climate is for the West to engage with the Palestinian National Unity government," Haniyeh said.
The Palestinian government is ruled by a coalition of Haniyeh's Islamic militant group and the Fatah movement of the more moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The rival movements formed the alliance in March in hope of ending international sanctions imposed on the previous Hamas-only government after the Islamic group swept parliamentary elections last year.
However, the West has not lifted the sanctions and in most cases has maintained contacts only with Fatah and independent members of the new government. Western countries have demanded Hamas renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist -- demands it refuses to accept.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in