ISRAEL WILL NOT HALT SECURITY FENCE WORK
By Herb Keinon
Jerusalem Post
Sept 28 2007
Israel has no intention of stopping work on the security barrier to
lure Saudi Arabia to the US-sponsored conference on the Middle East
later this year, senior diplomatic sources said Thursday night in
response to comments made by the Saudi foreign minister in New York.
"Israel has its own security needs that we have to address," the
official said. At the same time, the official characterized Prince
Saud al-Faisal’s comments, which included some upbeat remarks about
the upcoming Mideast meeting, as "interesting," and added that Israel
always listened to what the Saudis have to say.
The New York Times reported Thursday that Faisal said Israel should
stop work on the security barrier and stop settlement activity as
good-will gestures to assure Arab states and show it was serious
about comprehensive peace talks.
Up until now, Israel has rejected Saudi conditions on participation
in the talks. Jerusalem feels, however, that Saudi participation is
critical in garnering Arab support to Israeli-PA negotiations.
Faisal stopped short, however, of making these "good-will gestures"
conditions for Saudi participation, and also sounded an optimistic
note about the meeting.
"It is not Saudi Arabia that puts conditions, or Saudi Arabia that
is going to negotiate," he told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines
of the UN General Assembly. "Its presence there, or non-presence,
is not the most significant issue." Regarding the planned conference,
he said, "We have been shown a canvas with some brushstrokes that have
nice colors in them … but we don’t yet know if it is a portrait or
a landscape that we are looking at."
Based on the discussions with US officials, "there is a sense there
is something new happening and this is encouraging" if it turns out
to be true, he said.
Faisal said that discussions indicated that "the intent is to look at
the final-status issue – the important issues, and not the peripheral
issues.
This is encouraging. This is what we have always asked for." He
said that the onus lay on the Israelis to show their commitment
to a comprehensive settlement and that they were willing to take
confidence-building measures such as freezing settlement building.
"It will be curious for (Palestinian) President Abbas and the prime
minister of Israel to be talking about peace and the return of
Palestinian land while Israel continues to build more settlements,"
he said. "At least, a moratorium on the building of settlements will
be a good signal to show serious intent."
While the US hopes that Saudi participation will put the kingdom
on a path to recognizing Israel, Faisal said this possibility was
already outlined in the Arab peace initiative, which offers peace in
exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, including
in Jerusalem and on the Golan Heights.
"Recognition comes, but comes after peace, not before peace,"
Faisal said.
The Prime Minister’s Office had no formal response to the Saudi foreign
minister’s comments, waiting to see the full transcript, and context,
of his remarks.
In a related development, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met Wednesday
with Tunisian Foreign Minister Abdelwaheb Abdullah, and was expected
to meet Thursday evening with her Moroccan counterpart. Israel would
like to see both countries, considered part of the "moderate" Arab
coalition, participate in November’s planned conference.
Both meetings took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly
meeting, which Livni is attending.
According to Livni’s spokesman, the Foreign Minister briefed her
Tunisian counterpart on the status of the current talks with the PA
and spoke of the importance of the moderate Arab countries taking
part in the process.
The meeting, the first with a Tunisian official at this level in a
number of years, took place even though Israel and Tunisia have no
formal diplomatic relations.
Livni also met on Wednesday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan. Despite the importance of Israel’s relationship with Turkey,
and the tension caused because Israeli fuel tanks were found on the
Turkish side of the Turkish-Syrian border following Israel’s alleged
attack in Syria, the Foreign Ministry was mum on the content of
that meeting.
The Turkish press, however, reported that the current Israeli-Syrian
tensions, as well as the diplomatic process with the Palestinians,
dominated the talks. There was no word, however, on whether the
Anti-Defamation League’s recent decision to characterize the massacre
of Armenians in World War I as tantamount to genocide, a move that
could impact adversely on Turkish-Israeli ties, was raised.
Livni held a breakfast meeting Wednesday with representatives of some
20 African states, and also met with Republican presidential hopeful
Rudy Giuliani for talks that focused on the Iranian nuclear program
and the situation inside the PA.
According to Livni’s office, Giuliani said that were he still mayor of
New York, he would not have given Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
"free access and the platform" he received this week in the city.
AP contributed to this report.