 |
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 September 2000 Issue No. 500 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 September 2000 Issue No. 500
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
||
Egypt Elections Development Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters No time for time out
Israel announced on Tuesday that it wanted to take time out in peace talks with the Palestinians, claiming President Yasser Arafat was refusing to show flexibility. Only a few hours later, a spokesman for the Israeli cabinet said sorry, there had been a misunderstanding. Talks resumed yesterday.Asking for a "time-out" clearly reflects the way Israel thinks of its peace talks with the Palestinians -- as a football game of sorts, in which the coach calls "time" to give instructions to the players before resuming the game. While the Palestinians were infuriated by the Israelis' giving themselves the right to determine alone when to start and stop negotiations, nearly all those involved in the game tended to agree the talks were not making progress anyway.
The most any of the parties was hoping to achieve was a framework agreement, to be followed by more lengthy negotiations on the details. Besides the fact that the deadline was too close to reach a final agreement -- considering the US presidential elections scheduled for November -- Israel has insisted on maintaining a hard-line position and disregarded international law in general, as well as all UN resolutions in support of Palestinian rights. Israel, by blaming Arafat for the talks' failure to make progress and claiming that disagreement over the future of holy sites in the Old City is still the main sticking point, is trying to pull the wool over the world's eyes, as usual. Jerusalem is a main sticking point, but it is by no means the only problem. Palestinian negotiators say that no progress has been made on any of the other key issues -- such as the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees, the removal of illegal Jewish settlements and the borders of the new Palestinian state.
Of course, Muslims and Christians worldwide will be overjoyed when they recover their right to pray freely in their holy sites without having to apply for permission from the military occupiers. Jerusalem alone will not put an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, however. The right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland and to feel that they are citizens of their own nation is indispensable. Failure to reach a just settlement on this problem simply means that instability will prevail.
