Assistants to President Abbas said the President is under pressure from Fatah Movement which he heads not to attend the peace conference to be sponsored by the United States if he has no assurances on its results and the participants to attend it. The assistants said that Abu Mazen believes in the need to continue to prepare for the meeting which is expected to be held mid November. The assistants said that Fatah Movement controls now the West Bank after Hamas controlled Gaza Strip and that Fatah is exerting pressure on Abbas not to attend the conference unless he makes sure of its results and guarantee major international participation. One of the assistants said: We can live without a conference but we cannot live with a failing conference. Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior Fatah official, said the Palestinian side must not participate in a meeting that does not include all Arab concerned parties, referring to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He added: the conference must have a political content and clear agenda and clear results in relation to the final status issues.

Palestinian officials talked about the possibility of postponing the conference if the gap is not bridged between the positions of both sides.

American officials said Rice wants to reach to a commitment that can be reached in the conference to secure the participation of senior players in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, which informed Washington that it has no desire to attend the conference if it does not discuss concrete issues.

The Israeli President Peres told foreign reporters in Jerusalem that the relations between Abbas and Olmert are very good but that does not mean that they solved the main outstanding issues. He continued: Despite the fact that they have not solved all problems and although all paths have not been paved, the chances to reach to a peace process are better than any time in the past generally speaking. There is a window of hope and I say that the window is made of glass and we have to be very careful not to break it.

Even if the conference is held and even if peace breakthrough is achieved, it is not known how Abbas can impose the agreement on the Palestinian side with Hamas controlling now Gaza Strip. The Islamic Movement refuses the demands of the west to recognize Israel. Besides, Olmert is politically weak since the indecisive war he engaged in in Lebanon last year which raised doubts on his ability to honor any peace commitments he makes.

On its part, the Arab League Council said yesterday that the Arab governments do not want a formality peace conference between the Arabs and Israel. The League expressed hope to see the arrival of Rice to the region expedite the preparations for the conference. The Secretary General of the Arab League Amro Musa told Reuters in Cairo: the conference must not be one of those meetings for hand shakes and issuing a concluding statement that reflects general positions; we want details. We are serious this time, and if this time it is a formality meeting, we are not interested then. There is insistence on the side of the Arab group that it should not be taken lightly or taken for granted.

In the meantime, the Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council Abdul Rahman al-Atiyyeh affirmed that the Council wants the peace conference called for by Washington to be comprehensive and balanced and we don’t want a conference to aim to assist the Americans to get out of the Iraqi crisis. The countries of the Gulf Cooperation welcome any effort to achieve a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian cause and to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict. He stressed that the conference must be comprehensive and tackle the basic issues in a balanced manner; the conference must not aim to link between activating the peace process in the Middle East and developments of the situation in Iraq in an attempt to attract the Arab countries to a conference with a real aim of helping America get out of the Iraqi crisis. There is a need for a commitment to halt settlements and end the occupation and reach solutions to the final status issues, including Jerusalem and the refugees within a set timetable without excluding any of the concerned parties from the conference. If this happens, it will give the conference credibility so that it won't be like the wasted conferences in the past under the title of seeking peace.

Published at Al Quds NewsPaper on September 19, 2007