World

Mideast Summits To Show Support For Abbas

June 25, 2007 / 8:18 AM EDT / CBS/AP

The leaders of Israel, the Palestinians, Egypt and Jordan were discussing Monday how to advance the peace process after the violent Hamas takeover of Gaza earlier this month.

The aim, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger, is to strengthen U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. As a first step, Israel will release hundreds of millions of dollars in withheld tax revenues to the moderate Abbas government in the West Bank.

Israel's prime minister downplayed expectations ahead of Monday's summit bringing together Israeli and Arab leaders, saying the meeting would provide a launching point for renewed peace talks, not the venue for a major breakthrough.

"I prefer to see not only the dangers but also the chances," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said.

In other developments:

Palestinian militants who captured an Israeli soldier exactly a year ago said Monday that he is in good health and being treated well. However, in an audio tape released by Hamas, Gilad Shalit that his health is deteriorating and that he needs to go to a hospital. He also said in the brief statement that he is disappointed in the "lack of interest" of the Israeli government in his fate.

In a new video, kidnapped British journalist Alan Johnston appears with what he says are explosives strapped to his body and warns that his captors intend to set them off if rescuers attempt to free him by force. "As you can see, I've been dressed in what is an explosive belt, which the kidnappers say will be detonated if there's any attempt to storm the area," Johnston said. Hamas has threatened to use force if Johnston is not released immediately. Following that threat, Johnston said negotiations for his release collapsed.

Al Qaeda's deputy leader called on Muslims around the world to back Hamas with weapons, money and attacks on U.S. and Israeli interests in a Web audiotape Monday, urging the Palestinian militant group to unite with al Qaeda's "holy warriors" after its takeover of Gaza.

A state security court sentenced an Egyptian nuclear engineer to life in prison Monday after convicting him of spying for Israel, a court official said. Mohammed Sayed Saber, 35, an employee with Egypt's atomic agency, had been charged with harming the country's national security by giving stolen documents to Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, in exchange for $17,000.

Israel agreed Sunday to release desperately needed funds it has withheld from the Palestinian government.

Despite the goodwill gesture, Olmert said shortly before leaving for the summit, "Don't wait impatiently tonight for the outcome as if at the end of the day you are going to see us sitting and signing a peace treaty. It will take time."

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak invited Abbas, Olmert and Jordan's King Abdullah II to Sharm el-Sheik in a show of support for the Palestinian president in his struggle with Hamas. The meeting is also meant to show that Abbas of Fatah can move ahead with peacemaking.

The Israeli prime minister said the meeting was significant because the entire Arab world "will see two very prominent national leaders shaking hands with the head of the Palestinian Authority and the prime minister of the state of Israel, together, expressing a genuine desire to build up a process focusing not on terror, not on hatred, not on rejection, not on fighting each other, but on making peace."

Olmert repeated his stance that he is ready to discuss a Saudi initiative offering a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel in exchange for a withdrawal from all territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Olmert has called the plan a good starting point for negotiations, but expressed reservations over several aspects.

But he said such negotiations were no substitute for direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

In Jordan, where he met with Abdullah before the talks, Abbas was more optimistic about the summit, saying he received U.S. and Israeli assurances that the Jewish state was ready to make progress at the meeting in Egypt.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit also was more hopeful that progress would be made Monday, telling reporters the purpose of the meeting was to begin rebuilding confidence between the Israelis and Palestinians "until the road is open to restart negotiations between the two sides".

Peace efforts no doubt will be complicated by the emergence of a two-headed Palestine, ruled by the Iranian-backed Hamas in Gaza and the Western-backed Fatah in the West Bank. But Abbas and Arab countries have been urging Israel to take immediate advantage of the Hamas militants' expulsion from the coalition government.

Speaking in Gaza on Sunday, deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, denounced summit hopes as "illusions" and a "mirage." He said, "the Americans won't give anything. Israel won't give us anything. Our land, our nation will not come back to us except with steadfastness and resistance."

The Sharm el-Sheik summit comes a day ahead of a gathering in Jerusalem of the Quartet of Mideast negotiators — the U.S., EU, U.N. and Russia. The hope is that the meeting in Egypt could lead to more in-depth international efforts to prod peace talks that broke down amid violence in 2001.

On Tuesday, Mubarak is to meet with Saudi King Abdullah in Sharm el-Sheik, seeking to unify an Arab front behind Abbas.

Mubarak is afraid a Hamas-ruled Gaza on his country's border could embolden Egypt's own banned Islamic opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, and spawn terror attacks. Abdullah is afraid the Fatah-Hamas conflict could spread to the West Bank and spill over to neighboring Jordan, where about half the population is Palestinian.

And both, along with Saudi Arabia, are afraid Gaza could become a forward position for their regional foe, Iran.