Abbas toughens stance: PA will not accept any change to Arab peace initiative

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak yesterday that he will not accept any alterations to the Arab peace initiative. In a meeting in Cairo, Abbas also discussed with Mubarak his summit with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington last week.

After that meeting, Obama and Abbas told a press conference they were looking at ways to promote the peace process in the Middle East. At the conference, Obama stressed the need to work toward establishing a Palestinian state; he reiterated his demand that Israel halt all construction in West Bank settlements.

He also requested Abbas to step up security operations in the West Bank and "to continue to make progress in reducing the incitement and anti-Israel sentiments that are sometimes expressed in schools and mosques, because all those things are impediments to peace."

Obama said it was an American interest to ensure that Israel was safe.

"When Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu was here last week ... I told him each party has obligations under the road map," Obama said.

"On the Israeli side those obligations include stopping settlements. They include making sure that there is a viable potential Palestinian state. On the Palestinian side it's going to be important and necessary to continue to take security steps on the West Bank that President Abbas has already begun to take."

Obama added that those "security steps need to continue because Israel has to have some confidence that security in the West Bank is in place in order for us to advance this process."

Obama said he had no intention of presenting a new peace plan, and that the U.S. was committed to the road map and Arab peace initiative.

Abbas said the Palestinian Authority was fully committed to all its obligations under the road map. He called on Israel to accept the Arab peace initiative, and did not repeat the statement that he would not meet with Netanyahu until the prime minister acknowledged the "two states for two peoples" principle and stopped settlement construction.

He said what was needed now was to resume discussions of the six final-status issues with the Israeli government.

However, in an interview with the Washington Post, Abbas said he believed American pressure would topple Netanyahu within a few years. According to the Post, the Palestinian leader believes his main role at the moment is to wait until the Obama administration forces Netanyahu to freeze settlement construction and adopt the two-state solution.

Following the meeting, sources in Jerusalem expressed concern that Obama did not refer to Israel as a "Jewish state" at his press conference with Abbas.

"We don't understand why he didn't say it," a senior government official told Haaretz. "He could have, but he didn't."

The sources noted that Obama's body language was much more open at the meeting with Abbas than with Netanyahu earlier this month.

At his meeting with Mubarak, Abbas said he found a serious American administration committed to promoting the Middle East peace process and stopping settlement construction. He defined the meeting with Obama as very satisfying.