Tuesday, May 12, 2009

PEACE PROCESS LEADER DATES IN WSH

White House names dates for Middle East leader visits by Stephen Collinson – Tue May 12, 5:10 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama is to promise long-term, top-level US engagement in the Middle East in a high-stakes trio of summits with the leaders of Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians this month.In naming the dates for the key series of previously announced meetings, the White House said that the president was optimistic,despite seemingly grim prospects for progress in the stalled peace process.

Obama will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on May 18, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on May 26 and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on May 28.The talks will be watched for signs of discord between Obama and the new mainly right-wing Netanyahu government, which is yet to commit to the US goal of a Palestinian state and wants to prioritize efforts to confront Iran.The president, obviously, by nature is a fairly optimistic individual,said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who would not be drawn into commenting on Obama's aspirations or program for the talks.I think one of the things that he believes that has been missing from this debate is our continued high-level engagement in working to ensure progress to bring about that long-term peace.Critics of the previous US administration complain that former president George W. Bush only turned his attention to the Middle East late in his presidency, squandering an opportunity for progress.The looming visits to Washington, as the Obama administration solidifies its new Middle East policy, have set off a flurry of diplomacy and jockeying for position among key players in the region.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, who last month was the first Arab leader to meet Obama in the White House, warned in an interview with the Times newspaper of London on Monday that war could break out next year without an Arab-Israeli peace deal.Netanyahu meanwhile met in Egypt with Mubarak on Monday, and said he wanted to resume peace talks with the Palestinians within weeks -- but avoided any mention of a two-state solution to the conflict.Mubarak in turn said after meeting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the Red Sea resort of Sharm-El Sheikh Tuesday that Palestinian factions must unite before they could expect to achieve the creation of a state.Cairo has played a mediating role between Abbas's Fatah faction and the rival Islamist Hamas movement, which have been bitterly divided after Hamas seized Gaza in a week of deadly factional fighting in June 2007.In another possible sign of friction between the United States and Israel, a senior Israeli official told AFP Tuesday that Netanyahu will tell Obama next week he wants to keep building in existing settlements in the occupied West Bank.The United States has called for Israel to stop construction of settlements, one of the main obstacles in the stalled peace process.

In another sign of tensions, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal warned Tuesday that a reported Israeli plan to raze Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem and surround the city with Jewish-controlled sites was dangerous.Prince Saud said the moves reflect Netanyahu's extreme position on the Arab-backed two-states peace plan for the region.The peace plan calls for the Palestinians and Israelis to share Jerusalem as the capital of both states.On Sunday, an Israeli rights group said the government has secret plans to surround Jerusalem's Old City with sites under its control to strengthen its hold on the divided city.The plan would involve razing Palestinian homes built without permits in east Jerusalem.

Muslim cleric unrepentant about upstaging pope By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer – Tue May 12, 4:11 pm ET

JERUSALEM – A Muslim cleric who commandeered the stage at a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI to rail against Israel's harsh treatment of Palestinians said Tuesday he spoke out because he was representing Islam.Vatican officials criticized Sheik Taysir Tamimi's five-minute speech Monday evening at what had been billed as an interfaith meeting. It was the first political controversy played out in Benedict's presence on his five-day Holy Land pilgrimage.Tamimi said organizers had not allotted him speaking time, though he was seated on the stage, and he simply righted a wrong by walking up to the podium to address the pope. A rabbi at the meeting was also not scheduled to speak.I wanted to express the suffering of our people and to show the occupation's procedures against the Palestinian people,Tamimi told The Associated Press.If I represent Islam at a meeting for dialogue and I don't speak, am I just a piece of furniture? Tamimi is the head of the Jerusalem Islamic court, a senior religious position, and is a recognized leader among Palestinian Muslims.Benedict has said he is here as a pilgrim of peace,and his stops have been carefully scripted. But he has not been able to avoid some pitfalls as Israelis and Palestinians clamor to present their narratives. In Israel, critics said the German-born pope has failed to express remorse for the Holocaust. The Palestinians want him to address their suffering under Israeli military rule.Tamimi took the podium just before the last speaker of the evening was about to come up. Speaking in Arabic, he welcomed the pope to Jerusalem, the eternal political, national and spiritual capital of Palestine.

Benedict — who does not speak Arabic — was sitting in a white armchair on stage, alongside the Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, Tamimi and Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen, the chief rabbi of Haifa. Representatives of various religious groups sat in the audience, some wearing their regalia.Dressed in a black robe and red cap with a white cloth around it, Tamimi said in Arabic that Muslims and Christians suffered together under the Israeli occupation and longed for a Palestinian state.He accused Israel of confiscating Palestinian land to build Jewish settlements and preventing believers from reaching their holy sites. He said Israel's separation barrier made the West Bank a large prison.Israel began building the barrier, a combination of concrete walls, trenches and barbed wire, after a series of suicide bombings in Israel by West Bank Palestinians. But Palestinians object because the barrier's route juts into the West Bank in many places.Israel says the barrier is a meant to stop against attackers, but Palestinians maintain it's a land grab.Tamimi also criticized Israel's recent Gaza offensive, which killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in three weeks.Your holiness, the pope, I call on you in the name of the one God to condemn these crimes and pressure the Israeli government to stop its aggression against the Palestinian people,he said.Another panelist tried three times to interrupt Tamimi, whose speech got scattered applause from some in the audience.At the end, the cleric walked across the stage and shook Benedict's hand.The pope did not visibly react. Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See press office, said the pope did not understand what Tamimi said.Lombardi called his actions a direct negation of what dialogue should be.We hope that such incident will not damage the mission of the Holy Father aiming at promoting peace and interreligious dialogue as he has clearly affirmed in many occasions in this pilgrimage,he said. In his address, Benedict said differences should not divide believers, but provide a wonderful opportunity for people of different religions to live together in profound respect, esteem and appreciation, encouraging one another in the ways of God.Oded Weiner, director-general of the Chief Rabbinate, said Tamimi's speech showed the pope how difficult the mission is that he has taken upon himself to advance reconciliation and dialogue in our region.

Pope celebrates mass outside walls of Jerusalem by Albion Land – Tue May 12, 2:54 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Pope Benedict XVI celebrated mass outside of Jerusalem's Old City on Tuesday after two days in Israel spent navigating the currents of the region's conflicts and appealing for reconciliation.Benedict was greeted by thousands of cheering pilgrims as his white popemobile trundled through the olive groves in the valley of Kidron between the Mount of Olives and the 400-year-old walls of Jerusalem's Old City.The mass was the first the pope has celebrated since arriving in Israel on Monday at the start of a five-day visit that has already taken him to sites sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians.Here the path of the world's three great monotheistic religions meet, reminding us what they share in common,Benedict said earlier as he became the first pope to visit the Dome of the Rock shrine inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a site holy to Jews and Muslims.This sacred place serves as a stimulus, and also challenges men and women of goodwill to work to overcome misunderstandings and conflicts of the past and set out on the path of a sincere dialogue,he said.The pontiff arrived at the Dome of the Rock early on Tuesday, taking off his red shoes before entering the shrine whose huge golden cupola has become Jerusalem's main distinguishing landmark.The compound in which it stands in the Old City is the holiest place in Judaism and third-holiest in Islam and has often been a flashpoint in the Middle East conflict, most recently when the second Palestinian uprising erupted there in 2000.Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Hussein, who escorted the pontiff on the visit, urged the pope to work to end Israeli aggression against Palestinians.

At the Wailing Wall nearby -- believed by Jews to be one of the last remnant of their Second Temple -- the pope inserted a piece of paper into the mottled ancient stone cracks and prayed for peace in the Middle East.God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ... send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family,the note said.The Old City of Jerusalem was nearly a ghost town on Tuesday as Israel beefed up measures for the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics on his first official trip to Israel and the occupied West Bank.Benedict's trip is aimed at part at boosting Israel-Vatican ties and in a meeting with Israel's two chief rabbis on Tuesday, the pontiff reiterated that the Catholic Church was committed to reconciliation with the Jews.But many Israelis said they felt let down by the remarks made by the pope during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial on Monday in which he condemned the Holocaust and prayed for its victims.The visit was seen as part of an attempt to repair Israel-Vatican ties which have been strained over his backing for the beatification of controversial Nazi-era Pope Pius XII and reinstating a Holocaust-denying bishop.But critics pointed out the German-born pope failed to ask forgiveness for the Holocaust and insisted he displayed no emotion as he delivered his speech.All that was asked of you was to say a short, authoritative and moving sentence. All you had to do was to express regret. That's all we wanted to hear, the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot daily said in an editorial.The Vatican meanwhile struck out at what it said were false media reports that Benedict had been drafted into the Hitler Youth in 1941.The pope has said he never, never was a member of the Hitler Youth, which was a movement of fanatical volunteers,Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told a news conference. As a 16-year-old seminarian, the pope was a member of an auxiliary air defence squadron that had nothing to do with Nazism or Nazi ideology,the spokesman said.

The statement ran counter to what the pontiff had said in numerous interviews, in which he stated that he was an involuntary member of the Hitler Youth during World War II. The pope has said the central aim of his visit is to comfort rapidly dwindling Christian communities in the region, and on Tuesday he told an assembly of Catholic bishops that the Christian presence in the Holy Land is of vital importance for the good of society as a whole.I express with affection my personal closeness in this situation of human insecurity, daily suffering, fear and hope (in) which you are living.

Pope says Christian presence in Holy Land vital Tue May 12, 6:28 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – The survival of Christian communities in the Middle East is of vital importance,Pope Benedict XVI told a gathering of Catholic bishops in Jerusalem on Tuesday.Catholic communities in the Holy Land... in their faith and devotion, are like lighted candles illuminating the holy places that were graced by the presence of Jesus our living Lord,he said.This presence is of vital importance for the good of society as a whole,the pontiff told an assembly of bishops from several Catholic denominations in the room in the Old City where Jesus is believed to have held the Last Supper.Concern over the fate of the region's rapidly dwindling Christian communities has been at the heart of Benedict's week-long visit to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, his first since becoming pope.Christians in the Middle East, together with other people of good will, are contributing as loyal and responsible citizens, in spite of difficulties and restrictions, to the promotion and consolidation of a climate of peace in diversity,he said.I express with affection my personal closeness in this situation of human insecurity, daily suffering, fear and hope (in) which you are living.The Palestinian Christian population in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip has shrunk rapidly in recent decades as economic stagnation and political unrest have fuelled emigration.The second Palestinian uprising in 2000 saw Israeli forces sweep through the West Bank in fierce battles with Palestinian militants who unleashed a wave of suicide bombings inside Israel.

And the construction of Israel's controversial separation barrier beginning in 2004 has cut off large parts of the West Bank from Israel and from neighbouring Palestinian areas, severely restricting commerce.Church officials estimate that since 2000 some 4,000 Christians, most of them educated professionals, have left the occupied West Bank, where the Christian community is about 40,000-strong.The Christian population in Gaza, with a mere 2,500 living among 1.5 million Muslims, is particularly vulnerable, as the territory has been shut off from all but vital aid since the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in June 2007.

UN Security Council calls for a Palestinian state By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer – Mon May 11, 5:34 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council sent a strong message to Israel on Monday that the international community is demanding urgent efforts to create a separate Palestinian state and achieve an overall Mideast peace settlement.The council statement was approved by all 15 members a week before Israel's new hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has refused to endorse the two-state solution, holds his first meeting in Washington with President Barack Obama.U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, speaking at a ministerial meeting of the council as a member of Obama's Cabinet, underscored the president's determination to vigorously pursue a comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors in the months ahead.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gabriela Shalev objected to the meeting, saying Israel doesn't believe the involvement of the Security Council contributes to the political process in the Middle East and calling the timing inappropriate because of Netanyahu's upcoming visit and the government's ongoing policy review.This process should be bilateral and left to the parties themselves,Shalev said in a statement.But Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia, which holds the council presidency this month and organized Monday's meeting, stressed the importance of a rapid resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and of international involvement in the process, a view echoed by Rice and council members.The council reiterated its call for renewed and urgent efforts by the parties and the international community to reach a Mideast peace agreement based on the vision of a region where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, will live side by side in peace,according to its statement.Lavrov said the council wanted to ensure that the two-state solution — which is enshrined in legally binding council resolutions — was clearly reaffirmed and that the resumption of talks should not go back to square one,he said.While Israel's previous government, led by Prime Minster Ehud Olmert, was committed to the goal of Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peaceful independent states, Netanyahu has expressed misgivings about an independent Palestinian state.In the six weeks since he became prime minister, Netanyahu has pointed to Hamas' takeover of Gaza as a precedent and warned that turning over land to the Palestinians can bring violent extremists to power and endanger Israel.French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner deplored the lack of progress in the region so far, as evidenced by the continuing Israeli blockade in reconstruction aid for Gaza.

There is no lasting cease-fire there and rocket launches continue, Kouchner said. For us the window of opportunity is one that can be calculated in terms of months, not years.Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. observer, said: It is high time for the international community to shift gears and to tell Israel that there will be consequences if you do not respect and abide by the international consensus and by all previous commitments and obligations.While the Security Council took a strong tone with Israel, it also had a message for the Palestinians.It urged Palestinian factions to take tangible steps toward reconciliation, such as renouncing violence, respecting past commitments and recognizing Israel — the last of which Hamas refuses to do.The council backed the long-stalled road map to Mideast peace drafted in 2003 by the Quartet Mideast peacemakers — the U.S., Russia, the U.N. and the European Union — which outlined simultaneous steps for Israel and the Palestinians to establish a Palestinian state.The council also backed the Arab peace initiative launched in 2002 that calls for Arab recognition of the Jewish state in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from all lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war.U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said both sides must take steps to achieve peace.

Violence and terror will not bring the Palestinians statehood and dignity, he said, and settlement expansion and closure will not bring Israel security or peace.(This version CORRECTS RECASTS and UPDATES with new quotes from US, Palestinians and Russia; corrects that Netanyahu has been in office for six weeks)

Abbas to swear in new cabinet despite talks with Hamas By Mohammed Assadi – Mon May 11, 5:01 pm ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plans to swear in a new cabinet on Tuesday, to be headed by the outgoing prime minister, Salam Fayyad, officials of Abbas's Fatah movement said on Monday.The ministers will be sworn in by Abbas tomorrow,Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to the U.S.-backed Abbas, told Reuters of a plan that could complicate the scheduled resumption this week of power-share talks between Fatah and Hamas Islamists.The new cabinet is widely expected to bring members of secular Fatah into government for the first time since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, when Abbas responded by disbanding the Hamas-led unity government.Fatah members had been angry that Fayyad, a former World Bank economist had been running Palestinian finances without them, and had pressured Abbas to give them some cabinet posts.Fayyad resigned as prime minister in March after diplomats said he had been frustrated by his critics within Fatah and a lack of progress in peace talks with Israel. He then stayed on for weeks at Abbas's request.

Hamas criticized Abbas's plan to name a cabinet at this time as an attempt to strengthen his ranks and undermine power-sharing talks due to resume in Cairo on May 16 between the Islamists and secular Fatah, which dominates the occupied West Bank.The two groups have sought for months in on-again off-again talks hosted by Egypt to heal their rift. The negotiations have been complicated by Hamas's refusal to take steps it needs to end a Western aid boycott such as recognizing Israel.Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called Abbas's plan a preemptive step that does not foretell good and implies bad intentions on his (Abbas's) part.Fatah officials countered the new cabinet would be largely a reshuffle of the former government, that it would serve only in an interim capacity and resign if a power-sharing deal was reached with Hamas, or a new election, scheduled for 2010, was held.(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem; Editing by Richard Williams) (For blogs and links on Palestinian and Israeli politics go to http://blogs.reuters.com/axismundi)

Jordan's king says U.S. pushing new plan for Mideast Mon May 11, 11:10 am ET

LONDON (Reuters) – The United States is promoting a peace plan for the Middle East involving a 57-state solution in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel, Monday's Times of London quoted Jordan's King Abdullah as saying.We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms, the king said.The future is not the Jordan River or the Golan Heights or the Sinai, the future is Morocco in the Atlantic and Indonesia in the Pacific. That is the prize.But he warned:If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months.The newspaper said the king had hatched the plan with President Barack Obama in Washington in April. Details are likely to be thrashed out in a series of diplomatic moves this month, including Obama's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington next week.What we are talking about is not Israelis and Palestinians sitting at the table, but Israelis sitting with Palestinians, Israelis sitting with Syrians, Israelis sitting with Lebanese,said the king.While Palestinians seek a state in their long-running conflict with Israel, Syria wants the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in a 1967 war. Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah fought a war in 2006.I think we're going to have to do a lot of shuttle diplomacy, get people to a table in the next couple of months to get a solution,Abdullah said.

ARAB INCENTIVES

The Times said that, after Obama's meeting with Netanyahu in Washington on May 18, the peace initiative could form the centerpiece of his major address to the Muslim world in Egypt on June 4.The critical juncture will be what comes out of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting,Abdullah said.If there is procrastination by Israel on the two-state solution or there is no clear American vision for how this is going to play out in 2009, then all the tremendous credibility that Obama has worldwide and in this region will evaporate overnight if nothing comes out in May.The Times said that, as incentives to Israel to freeze the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Arab states may offer to let the Israeli airline El Al fly through Arab air space and grant visas for Israelis.A White House spokesman was not immediately available for comment on the report.The Obama administration backs the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of the solution to the Middle East conflict. Netanyahu has yet to endorse the idea.Netanyahu has been vague in public about the scope of any future peace talks. His main right-wing and ultra-Orthodox coalition partners oppose negotiations on the so-called core issues -- the borders of a Palestinian state as well as the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party criticized then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to restart talks on core issues at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2007.The talks bogged down last year and broke off after Israel went to war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in late December.(Editing by Charles Dick)

Russia plays up its international role – especially in Mideast peace By Howard LaFranchi – Mon May 11, 5:00 am ET

United Nations, N.Y. – Russia is moving to reassert its role in the Middle East – and in particular in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process – as President Obama prepares to receive principal leaders in the conflict at the White House in the coming weeks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov chaired a special meeting Monday of the United Nations Security Council that endorsed the idea of holding a Middle East peace conference in Moscow this year. In a presidential statement, the Security Council also called on all parties to honor past international accords – a clear nudge to a wavering Israeli government to embrace the concept of a two-state solution, in which a new Palestine would exist next to Israel.Also on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Egypt with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, declaring that Israel wants to renew negotiations with the Palestinians in the coming weeks. But he again refrained from endorsing a two-state solution.The New York meeting, which drew the foreign ministers of France, Britain, and Japan, among others, comes as Mr. Obama prepares to receive the new Israeli prime minister at the White House on May 18. Mr. Netanyahu will be followed soon thereafter by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.All eyes will be on those meetings – especially on Netanyahu's to see if he continues to omit public mention or endorsement of a two-state solution.But as the rotating president of the Security Council, Russia sees an opportunity to insert the international community – and raise Russia's own profile – in the Middle East proceedings, experts in the region say.

It's about showing Russia is a player,says Daniel Levy, co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation in Washington. With the crucial Washington meetings coming up, the international community and in particular the Russians want to have a hand in that and to influence that,he says.At a press conference following the Security Council meeting, Mr. Lavrov noted that the United States, in a Council statement delivered Monday by Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, called for integrating the Arab peace initiative of 2005 into the peace process. The Arab peace initiative, which was not enthusiastically embraced by the Bush administration, calls for full Arab recognition of the state of Israel, in exchange for Israel accepting a Palestinian state over most of the West Bank and Gaza.

The presidential statement, Lavrov emphasized, calls on all parties to work forward from established principles and signed accords and not to start from Square 1 – a signal to Israel to end its ambiguity about a two-state solution.Lavrov chaired the New York meeting on the same day that Moscow announced that Obama will visit Moscow on July 6-8 for a summit with President Dmitry Medvedev. That coincidence only underscores how recent steps by Moscow are as much about establishing a new leadership role in international diplomacy as they are about the Middle East peace process, some regional analysts say.What they are doing here is taking advantage of their one-month presidency of the UN Security Council, says Richard Murphy, an independent international consultant and former US ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia.Russia is also more interested in establishing a working relationship with the US as part of its international role, Mr. Murphy says, and less drawn to antagonizing the US.The former Soviet Union's strident support of Palestinian rights in the 1970s and 80s was as much about its opposition [to the US] as it was fondness for the Palestinian cause,he says. But now, working with the US and playing a constructive leadership role on the Security Council is a bigger part of establishing a new global leadership role, he adds.There was a time when the Russians had a much better relationship with the Palestinians than we had, when they cultivated the Palestinian leadership as they did the Syrians,Murphy says.But that role has blurred with the end of the cold war, and one gets the sense they are still finding their way in terms of the role they can play.

Pope arrives on first official visit to Israel Mon May 11, 4:12 am ET

BEN GURION AIRPORT, Israel (AFP) – Pope Benedict XVI arrived at Ben Gurion Airport on Monday at the start of his first official visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.The pontiff's plane touched down shortly after 0800 GMT, arriving from Jordan for a five-day trip that will take him to Jerusalem, Nazareth and the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem.

US: Iran threat underlines need for Israel to seek peace Sun May 10, 1:16 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US government agrees that Iran's nuclear ambitions pose an existential threat to Israel but that only reinforces the need for Middle East peace, a top official said Sunday.General James Jones, President Barack Obama's national security advisor, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would hear the US message on the need for a two-state solution first-hand when he comes here soon.We understand Israel's preoccupation with Iran as an existential threat. We agree with that,he said on ABC television.And by the same token, there are a lot of things that you can do to diminish that existential threat by working hard towards achieving a two-state solution,he said.This is a very strategic issue. It's extremely important. And we're looking forward to having a good, constructive dialogue with our Israeli friends when they visit Washington in the next seven or eight days.Netanyahu, Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will meet Obama at the White House in the coming weeks as the new US administration steps up its pressure for a regional peace deal.Netanyahu has so far refused to publicly endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, and has insisted on focusing efforts on strengthening the West Bank economy before engaging in talks on a final status agreement.As Obama met Israeli President Shimon Peres last Tuesday, US Vice President Joe Biden forcefully laid out what Washington expects from its partners in the search for an elusive peace deal.Israel's security is non-negotiable,he said, but demanded the Jewish state halt settlement building, dismantle existing outposts and allow Palestinians freedom of movement.Arab states must meanwhile make meaningful gestures to end their isolation of Israel, Biden said.

Israel plans to surround Old City: rights group Sun May 10, 10:56 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli government has secret plans to surround Jerusalem's Old City with sites under its control to strengthen its hold on the divided city, a rights group said on Sunday.The aim is to put in place in coordination with ultra-nationalist settler groups nine biblical parks, focusing almost exclusively on the ancient Jewish past of the city, said Daniel Seidemann, a founder of the Ir Amim advocacy group.The plan includes the demolition of Palestinian homes built without building permits and ignores the Muslim archaeological sites in occupied east Jerusalem, the lawyer told AFP.The plan, which has the support of the offices of the Jerusalem mayor and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, aims to surround the Old City with parks, trails and tourist sites under Israeli control, in a drastic change of the status quo in the city, Ir Amir said in a statement.The status of Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive topics in the decades-old Middle East conflict, with Israel claiming the city as its eternal, undivided capital, a position not recognised by the international community.Palestinians hoping to make the mostly Arab eastern part of the city, which has been occupied by Israel for more than four decades and contains sites holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims, the capital of their promised state.The programme is sponsored secretly by the office of the prime minister and the mayor of Jerusalem, not only without public discussions, but without the existence of the project even publicly known,Ir Amim said.The project is due to be carried out by the Jerusalem Development Authority which submitted a report on its plans to the prime minister's office in September 2008.According to that report, the objective of the plan is to create a sequence of parks surrounding the Old City in order to strengthen Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel.This policy risks pouring oil on the flames by transforming a national conflict into a religious one, playing the game of nationalist (Jewish) extremists Siedemann said.When asked to comment on the report, a spokesman for the prime minister's office said: Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of Jewish people for some 3,000 years and will remain the united capital of the state of Israel.

The government will continue to develop Jerusalem, development that will benefit all of Jerusalem's diverse population and respect the different faiths and communities that together make Jerusalem such a special city.The Jerusalem mayor's office declined to immediately comment and there was no immediate reaction from the development authority.The report comes a week before Netanyahu, Israel's hawkish premier, is due to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington.Israeli actions in east Jerusalem -- which it captured in 1967 and later annexed -- is one of the main points of discord between Obama's administration and Netanyahu's largely right-wing cabinet.On her first official visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank in March, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slammed Israeli plans to raze homes built without permits in east Jerusalem as unhelpful and a matter of deep concern.

Recession threatens Mideast oil exporters: IMF by Ola Galal – Sun May 10, 7:37 am ET

DUBAI (AFP) – The economies of Middle East oil exporters are likely to suffer from a possible prolonged global recession as demand for the region's main export wanes, the International Monetary Fund said on Sunday.Government expenditure, however, should mitigate the slowdown, the IMF said in a report released in Dubai.Arab states in the Gulf and other oil exporters in the Middle East were previously seen as less vulnerable to financial turmoil as they were cushioned by accumulated windfall revenues from oil.But with a continued oil price slide, those governments will be less inclined to maintain robust public spending, a key policy in mitigating the fallout from the economic downturn, the report said.A major risk to the economic outlook is the possibility of a prolonged recession. This would keep oil demand and prices low,it said.If MEOE (Middle East Oil Exporters) governments come to believe that oil prices will remain depressed for a prolonged period of time, they are likely to reduce their spending to maintain fiscal sustainability.Although oil has lost 100 dollars since peaking at a record 147 dollars a barrel in July, MEOE states have maintained a high level of capital spending, going from a massive collective surplus of 400 billion dollars last year to a projected deficit of 10 billion dollars in 2009, it said.Economic growth rates in Middle East oil exporters are expected to decline significantly although public expenditure should moderate the slowdown in non-oil growth, the IMF said, projecting real gross domestic product for those countries to grow 2.3 percent this year compared to 5.4 percent in 2008.GDP growth rate in Arab countries in the Gulf, the world's top oil exporters, is expected to slow by more than one third to 1.3 percent this year, according to the IMF.

The economies of the region are, however, expected to fare better than the economies of the European Union and the United States, which are expected to shrink 4.0 percent and 2.8 percent respectively, the IMF said.The reason why despite this drop in oil prices, they continue to do reasonably well is because most of them are using the reserves they've accumulated during the boom years to continue to maintain the level of public spending,Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia Department, said at a panel discussion in Dubai.This continued public spending during the downturn is protecting their own economies and is also having positive spillover effects on neighbouring countries.Gulf Arab countries, for example, have witnessed a six-year oil-fuelled economic boom, triggering a rally in the real estate and financial sectors.With the onset of the global financial crisis, governments in that region have stepped up spending to ramp up their economies.Saudi vowed in late 2008 to maintain spending on major projects despite the the global financial crisis, forecasting spending at 475 billion riyals (127 billion dollars) for this year.The UAE, the second-biggest Arab economy, expected total spending across all sectors fully controlled by the government to hit 135 billion dirhams (36.8 billion dollars) this year, an 11-percent increase over 2008.The IMF report identified Middle Eastern oil exporters as Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Yemen and the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Pope's address disappoints Muslim leaders Sat May 9, 10:58 am ET

AMMAN (AFP) – Jordanian clerics expressed disappointment that Pope Benedict XVI in an address to Muslim leaders on Saturday failed to offer a new apology for remarks seen as targeting Islam.We wanted him to clearly apologise, Sheikh Yusef Abu Hussein, mufti of the southern city of Karak, told AFP after the pope's address in Amman's huge Al-Hussein Mosque.What the pope said (in 2006) about the Prophet Mohammed is untrue. Islam did not spread through the power of sword. It's a religion of tolerance and faith, Hussein said.The pope had in 2006 quoted a medieval Christian emperor who criticised some teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as evil and inhuman.The pontiff apologised at the time for the unfortunate misunderstanding but ahead of his visit to Jordan the kingdom's main opposition party, the Islamic Action Front, said the pope was not welcome unless he again apologised.What the pope said was not an apology, said Hammam Said, the overall leader of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood and University of Jordan professor.We want the apology to be clear just like the insults to Islam were clear. He should acknowledge his mistakes. That's our position and the position of all Jordanians.The Brotherhood is represented in the lower house of parliament by its powerful political arm, the Islamic Action Front.We had hoped the pope would take into consideration the feelings of Muslims,said Sheikh Jamal Jumaah of the city of Madaba after the pope's speech in which he urged reconciliation between Christians and Muslims.

He is a guest of the Muslims and we expected him to say one word. It's not too late. He can still apologise.Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed, Jordanian King Abdullah II's advisor on religious affairs who hosted the pontiff during his visit to the mosque, was more conciliatory.I would like to thank you for expressing regret over the lecture in 2006, which hurt the feelings of Muslims,Ghazi told the pope.We realise that the visit (to Jordan) comes as a goodwill gesture and a sign of mutual respect between Muslims and Christians.The visit to Jordan is Benedict's first to an Arab state as pontiff and marks the first leg of an eight-day tour of the Holy Land that will also take him to Israel and the Palestinian territories.