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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Abbas to lobby Arab states for UN recognition |
| 2009-12-05 |
| [Ma'an] President Mahmoud Abbas will depart this week on a tour of Arab countries seeking support for efforts to establish a state unliterary, sources said on Friday. The president's tour is expected to include Lebanon, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt. Palestinians have vowed to seek recognition from the UN Security Council for a Palestinian state on the current border with Israel and the territories it occupied in 1967. Meanwhile, Israeli sources reported on Friday that the US administration and other Arab countries were putting pressure on Abbas not to quit his post at the end of his term. The Israeli daily Haaretz quoted senior Israeli security sources as saying Abbas should not leave the region "a piece of cake for Hamas." The source was unsure, however, if Abbas would ultimately step down. According to another security source, "the decision concerning Abbas ... will be taken during the [PLO] Central Committee meeting to be held in the coming 10 days, where 127 member votes would authorize Abbas to continue in his position." Israel will allow exiled members of the PLO to enter the Palestinian territories in response to the de facto government in Gaza's expected attempts to block the vote by banning Fatah delegates from leaving, the same source said. Over the summer, Hamas authorities prevented delegates from attending a party convention in Bethlehem. According to Haaretz, the US may formulate a letter from President Barack Obama affirming American support for the establishment of a state on the 1967 borders, and make clear America's ambiguous policy toward Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem. Also on Friday, Obama delayed moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for six more months, The Associated Press reported. The US Congress ratified a law in 1995 that states Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of Israel. The act affirms that each country has the right to designate a capital of its choice, and Israel chose Jerusalem. The act also states that the US must move its embassy to Jerusalem no later than 31 May 1999. However, over the past decade, the decision has been delayed every six months due to the sensitivity of the issue. Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem from Jordanian control in 1967, annexing it and declaring the city the "undivided, eternal capital of Israel," although the move was never recognized abroad. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 We're already in Iraq and Afghanistan, JosephM. I can't see President Obama adding another war, even a little local brushfire of a war, to further tarnish his Nobel peace prize. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-12-05 20:43 |
| #1 FREEREPUBLIC > SAUDIS IN A "STATE OF PANIC" AS SHIITE REBELS MOVE NORTH FROM YEMEN; + [earlier] IRAN IS VERY CLOSE TO HAVING A NUCLEAR WARHEAD. Iff its not diversion vee Israel attacking Iran, the KSA is likely to ask for direct US mil intervention iff thingys get out of hand in Yemen??? |
| Posted by: Josephmendiola 2009-12-05 01:04 |