Mideast Summit To Show Support For Abbas
Closing ranks against Hamas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has invited the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders to a peace summit next week, Palestinian and Israeli officials said Thursday.
The regional gathering is the biggest show of support yet by moderate Arab states for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in his bitter showdown with the Islamic militants, who seized control of Gaza last week.
Israel hopes that the summit, to be held Monday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, will strengthen Abbas, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger.
"The Israeli prime minister respects the Palestinian president for the fact that he is for moderation," said Ehud Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisen.
In other developments:
The summit will also highlight the highly difficult situation would-be peacemakers face now that Hamas is in charge of Gaza. The takeover has created a two-headed Palestine, with Hamas in charge of Gaza and Abbas' Fatah in charge of the West Bank, and that's sure to complicate efforts to forge a peace deal that would establish a Palestinian state.
Abbas will call for a resumption of peace talks with Israel, arguing that only progress toward Palestinian statehood can serve as a true buffer against Hamas, Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said.
"The most important thing to realize is that time is of the essence," Erekat said. "We need to deliver the end of occupation, a Palestinian state. If we don't have hope, Hamas will export despair to the people."
Eisin said the four would "address ways to promote the moderate agenda and ways to go forward on the Israeli-Palestinian issues."
As immediate steps, Abbas will ask Israel to remove West Bank checkpoints that disrupt daily life and trade, and to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian tax funds Israel froze after Hamas came to power last year.
In Washington this week, Olmert said he would propose to his Cabinet on Sunday that it unlock frozen funds. Israel is holding about $550 million in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians.
Although largely inactive in recent years, the PLO considers itself the sole representative of the Palestinian people, and can bestow legitimacy or take it away.
Technically, the Palestinian legislature would have to approve the emergency government after a month. However, it is controlled by Hamas and has been paralyzed for months, following Israel's arrest of most Hamas legislators.
The PLO backing, which was to be approved procedurally later in the day, in effect sidelines the parliament.
Hundreds of Gazans rushed to the main passenger crossing with Israel immediately after the Hamas takeover late last week, including Fatah loyalists who feared they'd be harmed by the Islamists, desipte their offer of amnesty.
By Thursday, however, the passage — rank with the stench of urine and garbage — was nearly empty after it became clear that a mass exit to the West Bank through Israeli territory was not approved.
Among those who left were gunmen from Abbas' Fatah movement, their wives and children. Others included Palestinian-American teenagers (left).
Seventy people had been authorized to leave, but about half decided to stay in Gaza after discovering they were to go to Egypt rather than the West Bank, the spokeswoman said.