CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak said on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state torpedoed the chance for peace. "The call to recognize Israel as a Jewish state complicates things further and scuppers the possibilities for peace, state news agency MENA quoted Mubarak as saying at a military ceremony. Netanyahu on Sunday gave a speech in which he endorsed for the first time the creation of a Palestinian state, provided it was demilitarized and that Palestinians recognize the Jewish character of Israel. He ruled out a halt to all Jewish settlement activity, said that Palestinian refugees' return would not be negotiated and that Jerusalem would be Israel's capital, despite Palestinian hopes for part of the city to be the capital of their future state. "I told (US President Barack) Obama that the solution to the crises of the Muslim and Arab world pass through Jerusalem, Mubarak said, after the US president gave a major speech to the Muslim world from Cairo on June 4. "The call for a modification of the Arab peace initiative to eliminate the right of return will not be accepted by anyone in Egypt or elsewhere, Mubarak said, referring to a 2002 Saudi peace plan. The initiative, backed by all 22 members of the Arab League, offers Israel full normalization in return for a withdrawal from territory occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, a Palestinian state and an equitable solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. "I said to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that negotiations on the definitive status of the Palestinian territories must resume from where they left off, immediately, Mubarak said. Egypt was the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Cairo is also a key US ally in the region and recently was involved in mediating between the Islamist Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Israel. Mubarak said that when he spoke with Obama in Cairo, the US president's "positions were extremely positive. "We agreed to continue to work together for a just peace which will end the Palestinian people's suffering, allow the creation of an independent state and open the way for a comprehensive peace and end to the Arab-Israeli conflict once and for all.
