Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is not ready for "serious negotiations" with the Palestinians and other Arab leaders on efforts to forge peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian foreign minister said Wednesday.
"I believe that Mr. Prime Minister Olmert is not ready to enter into real negotiations, serious negotiations with the Arabs, with the Palestinian side," Ziad Abu Amr told reporters after meeting with Austrian counterpart Ursula Plassnik. "And I also believe, I can say here, that this time we don't have an Israeli partner anymore," he said.
Abu Amr described as "clear, strong and honest" a peace initiative relaunched by the Arab League last week, and he said Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was prepared to meet with Olmert at any time.
Meanwhile, in other news, the Jerusalem Post carries these reports:
Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Mashaal denied on Saturday that there had been any change in his organization's policies, and declared that Hamas would neither abandon "armed resistance" nor agree to give up an "inch of Palestinian land."
Then there is the current security situation in the Gaza Strip:
The PA cabinet held an emergency meeting in Gaza City on Saturday to discuss ways of ending the state of lawlessness in PA-controlled territories, as anarchy grew in the Strip. Interior Minister Hani Kawassmeh, who is formally in charge of the PA security forces, presented the cabinet with a new "security plan" aimed at restoring law and order. Contrary to expectations, the cabinet did not take any decision on the plan. Instead, it decided to hold another meeting next week to discuss ways of implementing it.
Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t make a brief mention the latest kidnapping victim.
Or how Internet café owners in the Gaza Strip have made directed appeals to Palestinian security forces to stop attacks on their businesses. But remember Israeli is not a serious peace partner. And just to point out that the madness is not contained in to the Gaza Strip alone. Two Israeli soldiers were stabbed in Hebron today:
Two Border Policemen were stabbed near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Sunday afternoon. One soldier suffered moderate wounds after he was stabbed in the back and the other was stabbed in his hand, sustaining only minor wounds.Stabbed in the back, yep, it sure sounds like a well-nurtured culture of peace…. Of course, these are just the reports in a 24 hour news cycle. Personally, I suspect the Palestinians are overall too busy killing each other to notice if Israel is a serious peace partner or not.
MDA teams arrived on the scene and gave the wounded soldiers preliminary treatment. They were then taken to Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem for further treatment. The attacker, a 17-year-old Palestinian entered the site through the Palestinian side of the cave, was shot and wounded in his leg. He was also taken to Ein Kerem hospital.
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