Arab League official wants Israel at table
United Press International
JERUSALEM, May 26 (UPI) -- The secretary of the Arab League tells the Jerusalem Post that Israel took too rigid a view of a peace plan presented in 2002.
"I should know," Gen. Amr Moussa said. "I drafted it."
In the peace plan, known as the Beirut Initiative, the 22 Arab countries offered to recognize Israel if a settlement provided for a Palestinian state with full sovereignty and East Jerusalem as its capital. The plan also called for Israel and Palestine to be divided along the border that existed before the 1967 war and for a just settlement to the problem of Palestinian refugees.
Israel rejected the plan, arguing that the pre-1969 borders should be a basis for negotiation. Moussa said he agreed.
"What we are offering in the Arab initiative is two states," Moussa said. "An Israeli state with the Jewish people living there and a Palestinian state, dividing the land of Palestine along the lines of 4 June 1967 .... If there are changes in the borders, or around the borders, they have to be astride the borders. You take this, I take that. Just to adjust."
Moussa, who rarely gives interviews to Israeli publications, thought this one was so important that half an hour into it he said he was not getting his point across and said, "Let's start again."
JERUSALEM, May 26 (UPI) -- The secretary of the Arab League tells the Jerusalem Post that Israel took too rigid a view of a peace plan presented in 2002.
"I should know," Gen. Amr Moussa said. "I drafted it."
In the peace plan, known as the Beirut Initiative, the 22 Arab countries offered to recognize Israel if a settlement provided for a Palestinian state with full sovereignty and East Jerusalem as its capital. The plan also called for Israel and Palestine to be divided along the border that existed before the 1967 war and for a just settlement to the problem of Palestinian refugees.
Israel rejected the plan, arguing that the pre-1969 borders should be a basis for negotiation. Moussa said he agreed.
"What we are offering in the Arab initiative is two states," Moussa said. "An Israeli state with the Jewish people living there and a Palestinian state, dividing the land of Palestine along the lines of 4 June 1967 .... If there are changes in the borders, or around the borders, they have to be astride the borders. You take this, I take that. Just to adjust."
Moussa, who rarely gives interviews to Israeli publications, thought this one was so important that half an hour into it he said he was not getting his point across and said, "Let's start again."
posted by HRM Deborah of Israel and the Messenger of Peace at 6:17 AM
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