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Abbas Meets With Israel's Foreign Minister in Egypt

Posted on: Sunday, 21 May 2006, 18:05 CDT

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt _ Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with Israel's foreign minister and deputy prime minister here on Sunday, the highest-level talks between Palestinian and Israeli officials in nearly a year.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that urgent measures were needed to resurrect stagnant Middle East peace talks if there's to be hope of Israelis and Palestinians living peacefully in their own, neighboring countries. "I think that time is working against those who believe in a two-state solution," she said.

Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres told reporters the meeting, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum conference here, had gone well and was a "preparation and an opening, particularly on the economic side," after 11 months without a high-level meeting.

But comments by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem suggested it was unlikely Sunday's talks would lead to renewed negotiations. Olmert derided Abbas as a "powerless" and "helpless" leader incapable of leading the Palestinian people to peace.

The conflicting events came on the eve of Olmert's first official trip to Washington where he is expected to face political pressure not to isolate Abbas, who American officials are working to bolster in his ongoing power struggle with the Hamas-dominated Palestinian government.

Underscoring Abbas' difficult position, Palestinian police in Gaza foiled what they said was another apparent assassination plot against a top official allied with Abbas.

Police said they discovered a 150-pound roadside bomb planted on the road Rashid Abu Shbak, the head of the Palestinian Authority's security services, takes from his south Gaza City home to work. The bomb was discovered just before Shbak left his house.

The discovery came one day after Abbas' intelligence chief was seriously injured in an explosion in an elevator shaft at his headquarters in Gaza.

The apparent assassination attempts came on the heels of several gun battles between Abbas' Fatah and Hamas, raising concerns that the factional fighting could spin out of control. A statement from Fatah called the attacks a "clear conspiracy" against the party, though members stopped short of overtly blaming Hamas.

Nabil Shaath, a Fatah legislator and former Palestinian information minister, told reporters in Egypt that it was too early to let accusations fly.

"I've seen too many detective movies in my life," he said. "When it looks so much like Hamas, you have to doubt that it is Hamas."

Saab Erekat, the Palestinians' chief negotiator, acknowledged that the differences between Abbas' Fatah, which has accepted Israel's right to exist, and Hamas, which has not, poses difficulties.

"People are saying we are an authority with two heads or a people with two governments, which is true, which is causing so much crisis," he said here. "I couldn't imagine that in 2006 that we are an observer member of the (United Nations) and we have a government that doesn't recognize the charter of the U.N."

Ever since the January elections propelled Hamas into control of the Palestinian Authority, Israel has worked to isolate the government by cutting off its diplomatic and economic ties.

Israeli leaders are skeptical of Abbas' ability to lead peace talks. Just two months ago, Foreign Minister Livni dismissed Abbas as irrelevant. On Sunday, Olmert suggested that there was little point in working with Abbas because his once-dominant Fatah party had lost power in the election.

"Mahmoud Abbas was deprived of all his powers," Olmert said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.""He is powerless. He is helpless. He's unable to even stop the minimal terror activities amongst the Palestinians. How can he seriously negotiate with Israel and take _ assume responsibility for the most major, fundamental issues that are in controversy between us and them?"

The United States has joined Israel in shunning Hamas, but the Bush administration is trying to shore up Abbas. American officials are expected to press Olmert to work with Abbas during Olmert's visit to Washington, where he will meet on Tuesday with Bush and deliver an address to Congress.

But the Israeli prime minister is also expected to begin outlining his campaign pledge to unilaterally set Israel's borders without talking to the Palestinians by absorbing more West Bank land while removing thousands of Jewish settlers from larger portions of the occupied territory.

Just before flying to Washington, Olmert agreed to release $11 million in frozen Palestinian taxes to ease the unfolding humanitarian crisis.

"It is the Israeli government policy not to punish the Palestinian people for their vote and to help the Palestinian people in any economic and humanitarian way that we could," Livni told reporters after the meeting with Abbas.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi also pledged $16 million to help fund the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority through the end of the year. He told a news conference here that the money is dedicated to municipal councils in the territories.

After the talks, Abbas also warned Palestinians against internecine violence.

"Civil war is a red line which no one would dare to cross," Abbas said. "Skirmishes take place, but a civil war is forbidden."

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(Allam reported from Sharm el-Sheikh, Nissenbaum from Jerusalem.)

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(c) 2006, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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Source: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau

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