Arab League chief to discuss French, Arab peace bids in Ramallah
Nabil Elaraby, a vocal critic of Israel, to visit Ramallah, Hebron but will stay away from Jerusalem given heightened tensions
Dov Lieber is a former Times of Israel Arab affairs correspondent.
Arab League secretary general Nabil Elaraby will begin on Tuesday a two-day visit to Ramallah, during which he is expected to discuss the French and Arab peace initiatives with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Elaraby, according to statement by Abbas’s office, will arrive at the presidential compound in Ramallah via helicopter from Jordan at 1 p.m. This will be the second visit by Elaraby to the PA’s seat of power since taking office in 2012.
The Arab League chief is also scheduled to visit the tomb of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, as well the Ibrahimi Mosque connected to the Cave of the Patriarchs compound in Hebron.
A trip to the Al-Aqsa Mosque atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was not planned, the Haaretz newspaper reported, because of the sensitivity and current strained tensions at the holy site.
The visit comes amid increased chatter over the possibility of jump-starting Mideast peace talks, with France sponsoring a multilateral conference and Israel expressing interest in pursuing the Arab Peace Initiative backed by the Arab League.
Elaraby attended the Paris peace summit at the start of June, which concluded with a warning that violence and settlement activity are imperiling a two-state solution and a call for an international conference on the issue before the end of the year. Israelis and Palestinians were not invited to the summit. Israel rejected the summit’s conclusion, while the PA welcomed the statement.
During a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo at the end of May that convened to discuss the French initiative, Elaraby, who has been a vocal critic of Israel, said the Jewish state “has truly become today the last bastion of fascism, colonialism and racial discrimination in the world.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently offered support for some parameters of the Arab Peace Initiative, which promises Israel full diplomatic ties with 57 Arab and Muslim states after it cements a peace accord with the Palestinians, in a move seen as a dramatic change in policy.
The Israeli announcement came after it was reported that Arab states had sent a message to Netanyahu indicating their willingness to discuss changes to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.
Elaraby, however, quickly responded to Netanyahu’s announcement on the Arab Peace Initiative, saying on June 4 that the Arab League would reject any attempts to amend the proposal.
The Times of Israel Community.