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Arab FMs Consider Proposals To Boycott Israel, Sharon
Jordan Times (Amman)

Posted Friday December 21, 2001 - 06:34:03 AM EST
 

Cairo - Arab League foreign ministers met here Thursday to reach a unified position towards Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and were considering a proposal to boycott relations with the Jewish state's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Jordan, meanwhile, reiterated its calls for supporting the Palestinian leadership and fending off attempts to isolate it.

Sixteen out of 22 Arab foreign ministers were meeting at the Arab League headquarters in the Egyptian capital at the request of the Palestinians to adopt a unified position towards Israel.

The meeting was called after Israel launched numerous assaults against Palestinian National Authority targets and confined Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to virtual house arrest in the West Bank town of Ramallah in reaction to suicide attacks launched by Palestinian resistance groups.

In a draft of the meeting's final communiqué, submitted to ministers during informal meetings in the afternoon and debated behind closed doors in the evening, Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa proposed a boycott of Sharon.

"The Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs calls for the complete cessation of political contacts with the Israeli prime minister," Musa's draft said.

"Israel's boycott, or its ignoring Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, means the Arab countries should take the same decision concerning Sharon," said the draft.

"If (Ariel) Sharon does not see President Arafat as a partner in the peace process, the Arab countries do not see in Sharon a partner worthy of trust, and do not see any use in pursuing contacts with him," the text continues.

Musa also proposed that the meeting decide that "the people of the Arab countries stop dealing economically with Israel in any form, and boycott Israeli products in any market, especially the products of the (Israeli) settlements, so long as the Israeli policies of aggression, of assassination, of state terrorism continue." The draft also calls on the Palestinian people and all their organisations to "unite" with the Palestinian Authority, an allusion to simmering tensions in the territories with resistance movements such as Hamas, the principle author of the anti-Israeli strikes.

On Sunday, Arafat made an unprecedented appeal to the Palestinian people for a halt to "all armed operations" against Israel, notably of suicide bombings, and an "immediate" revival of negotiations with the Jewish state.

He has been cracking down on Hamas - arresting activists and shutting offices, schools and other institutions linked to the movement - under intense international pressure to halt the violence that has plagued the region for almost 15 months.

Syria meanwhile has demanded that Arab countries break all relations with Israel and show their support for the continuation of the Palestinian uprising, according to its own draft communiqué.

Syria's draft calls on Arab countries "to reactivate the boycott of Israel, on all levels" and call on the "next Arab summit to take a decision recommending that Arab countries which maintain relations with Israel permanently suspend ties in all areas." Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with Israel in 1979 and 1994, respectively.

Syria has also called on the meeting to "affirm its refusal to mix terrorism with the rights of the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian people to resist the Israeli occupation," the text adds.

Jordan's Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah Khatib, who is chairing the meeting, called for countering Israeli schemes attempting to isolate the Palestinian leadership, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

"There is an obvious scheme that is being carried out by different circles for the purpose of isolating the Palestinian National Authority", said Khatib, following a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmad Maher.

Khatib emphasised the importance of sending a clear message of support for the Palestinian National Authority, expressing rejection of any attempt to isolate it and condemning Israel's decision to halt contacts with the PNA.

"We believe that the situation in the region will not become under control through the use of force," he added. "The Palestinians and the Israelis have to sit down and negotiate as equal partners. This does not call for the severing of relations. It rather calls for enhancing communications and going back to the negotiating table".

The main priority, he added, "is for the Arabs to stand with the Palestinian people and to offer real political and economic support to the Palestinian people".

Palestinian delegates submitted a report stating that the Palestinian Authority must address the UN General Assembly to obtain "international protection for the Palestinian people" after the United States, Israel's main ally, vetoed an Arab-proposed resolution on the Middle East.

The Palestinian Authority "calls upon the international community to rapidly send international observers to the Palestinian territories," the Palestinian report said.

Exercising its veto power for only the second time in more than four years, the United States on Dec. 14 quashed a resolution co-sponsored by Tunisia and Egypt that condemned called for a "monitoring mechanism" to "help create a better situation in the occupied Palestinian territories." Israel has said it opposes such a mechanism. - Agencies

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