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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Top Arabs pay rare visit to West Bank, discuss financial crisis |
| 2012-12-30 |
| Top Arab officials paid a rare visit to the West Bank on Saturday to discuss a Palestinian financial crisis that President Mahmoud Abbas hopes will be eased by Arab donations. Arab League Chief Nabil Elaraby and Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr congratulated the Palestinians on a successful United Nations status upgrade last month, but stopped short of promising the badly-needed funds. "Palestine is in need of material and political support," Elaraby told a news conference in the Palestinians' de facto capital of Ramallah. "Arab countries agreed at their Baghdad summit (in March) for an Arab safety net of $100 million dollars each month, but unfortunately none of this has been achieved yet." Elaraby is the first Arab League Chief to visit Ramallah, but he and other prominent Arab and Islamic leaders, including the Egyptian prime minister, met Abbas' Palestinian Hamas rivals in Gaza during their brief war with Israel last month. |
| Posted by:Pappy |