-Caveat Lector- =========================================================== Saturday, February 24 8:37 PM SGT Arafat says he will call on US to ensure Israel honors peace agreements AMMAN, Feb 24 (AFP) - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said he will call for the United States to ensure the enforcement of peace deals reached between Israel and the Palestinians when he holds his first meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday. "We expect the US administration, which is the principal sponsor of the peace process, will ensure what was agreed to between us and the Israelis Sharm el-Sheikh, in Taba or elsewhere," Arafat said Saturday after meeting for an with Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb. "The essential thing is to implement all the agreements that have been concluded in the presence and with the signature" of the Americans, Arafat said, without being more specific. Sharm el-Sheikh and Taba are Egyptian Red Sea resorts where the two sides have held talks, both before and since the outbreak of the latest Palestinian uprising last September. At Sharm el-Sheikh in October, there was a verbal agreement to bring about a cease fire in the now five-month-old Palestinian uprising, then only a few weeks old. To date, the agreement, which called for a withdrawal of Israeli troops from around Palestinian towns, has not been implemented. Likewise, talks at Taba in January were a last-ditch effort by the caretaker goverment of Ehud Barak, a week before Barak lost to Ariel Sharon in an election for prime minister, to reach a final peace deal with the Palestinians. In 1999, Israel agreed in Sharm el-Sheikh to three successive withdrawals from Palestinian territory. One is still to be implemented. Earlier, in Taba, the two sides hammered out some of the details in their relationship until such time as a final settlement could be reached, which was targeted for 1999. Arafat's government has been devastated by Israel's punishing blockade of the Palestinian territories and by the Jewish's state refusal to unfreeze more than 40 million dollars in tax revenues to Arafat. Arafat said he recommended enforcement of agreements signed with Israel via meetings of the two sides in the presence of the US, European Union and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. He said US President George W. Bush decribed to him Powell's visit to the region as simply a listening tour to familiarise himself with the facts on the ground, including on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Arafat also condemned the Israelis shelling Friday of the Palestinian Authority's offices in the West Bank, including those of Mahmud Abbas, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. "It is not the first time. Unfortunately, all of our locations have been made the target of continued bombing," Arafat said. Arafat also called for Arab countries to adopt a united front in preparation for the next summit of Arab leaders to be held March 27 in the Jordanian capital. "The most important thing is to adopt a firm and united Arab position that will be developed during the Arab summit to be held in Amman" on March 27, Arafat said. Powell arrived Saturday morning in Cairo on his first trip as Washington's top diplomat and will hold talks Sunday in Gaza City with Arafat. Arafat came to Amman after visiting Athens Friday, where he urged Greek leaders to work "for peace to return to the Middle East." He left Amman by helicopter for Ramallah in the West Bank. ================================================================ There are TWO main reasons for the continuing misery of the Palestinian people in the Mid-East. 1 - The existence of the Jewish State of Israel. 2 - The history of choosing the dumbest, vilest, most corrupt leadership in a region known for vile and corrupt leaders. Since there is nothing that they can really do about Israel, it then behooves them to deal with their own elites. Palestinian leaders made bad choices in 1948 for their people when they thought they could ' drive the Jews into the sea ' and refused the UN partition. Big mistake #1. Then it was 50 years of bad choices culminating in the acceptance of Arafat as the supreme Palestinian leader. Arafat's political decision to extract concessions from the Israelis by starting the Aqsa Intifada, was a stupid shortsighted decision which brought Arik Sharon to power. The concessions that Israel made were evidently not good enough. Well then... what do his people have going for them now? Bupkes! Nothing. Now that they lost everything ( such as it was,) due to their great leader's judgment, they are begging for the old peace deal to be reinstated. What has this cost? Everything. The Israeli "peace" crowd had to give up their illusions that they can really live in peace with the people who they displaced. There are almost 500 dead as a result of the Palestinian leadership's inability to understand power politics. Most of the dead are Palestinian. How many more will die? Yassir you moron. You don't bring a knife to a gunfight. Joshua2 <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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