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Abbas to Arab FMs: Israel's 'verbal' peace deal unacceptable PA President Mahmoud Abbas tells Arab FMs meeting in Cairo that Tel Aviv's proposed 'verbal peace offer' is a non-starter
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas told a meeting of Arab foreign ministers that convened in Cairo on Sunday that Israel's "verbal peace offer" could not be accepted by the Palestinian people. The offer, according to Abbas, excludes any discussion of the fate of East Jerusalem and stipulates that the city be "kept out of the borders" of any future Palestinian state. Abbas, who joined Arab foreign ministers' discussions on Syria on Sunday, also complained that the Israeli proposal would allow the self-proclaimed Jewish state to keep "the Israeli army on the Jordan River for decades to come." East Jerusalem's fate and the borders of a future Palestinian state were two key final-status issues in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that were suspended over one year ago due to Israeli intransigence on the issue of illegal, Jewish-only settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land. Israel's mushrooming illegal settlement activity amounts to the de facto annexation of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 Middle-East war. Israel insists on maintaining major settlement blocks, demanding that the Palestinians recognise new demographic facts on the ground. Such a scenario, however, would leave the Palestinians with less than 20 per cent of historical Palestine. In Cairo on Sunday, Abbas said he was not willing to return to the negotiation table if Israel did not suspend illegal settlement construction and continued to insist on the above parameters for a final peace settlement. Arab foreign ministers, for their part, said that a comprehensive peace deal could only be reached on the basis of relevant international parameters, including UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which call for the end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian and other Arab territories. According to a resolution adopted on Sunday by Arab foreign ministers, the time has come for an international conference on the issue of Palestinian statehood. The conference, according to the resolution, "should provide for a final and comprehensive settlement of all final-status issues" – including national borders, security, Jerusalem and refugees – "in line with the agreed terms of reference and in line with the [2002] Arab Peace Initiative that calls for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and with a fair settlement of the problem of Palestinian refugees in line with UN General Assembly Resolution 194." Resolution 194 calls for the repatriation of – or compensation for – Palestinian refugees who were terrorised into fleeing their land by invading Zionist forces in 1948. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/34384.aspx
