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PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Tuesday (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners May 4, 2006 |
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Palestinian and Israeli leaders plan their first summit in more than a year, raising the possibility that Israel might consider a proposal by moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to bypass the Hamas-led government and let him conduct peace negotiations.
Ehud Olmert's new Israeli government is to be sworn in Thursday, and Olmert is to travel to Washington after that, to be followed by a meeting with Abbas, said a senior Israeli official on Tuesday. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because plans have not been finalized.
Israel stands by its refusal to deal with Hamas, an Islamic movement that favors destruction of the Jewish state.
The Israeli official said no firm date has been set for the summit. Israel has said it would not regard the Palestinian Authority as a two-headed entity, negotiating peace with Abbas while fighting Hamas. But Olmert never ruled out talks with Abbas, who unlike Hamas is eager to negotiate with Israel about creating a Palestinian state.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas was "ready to meet with Mr. Olmert as soon as he forms his government." There have been no high-level Israeli-Palestinian meetings since Hamas won a January parliamentary election.
Olmert, whose new government is to be sworn in Thursday, plans to set Israel's border by 2010, completing construction of a security barrier, evacuating tens of thousands of Jewish settlers and withdrawing from parts of Judea and Samaria on the other side of the barrier. He said he would try to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians, but would take unilateral action if that fails.
Abbas, a moderate elected separately a year earlier, has been urging Israel to conduct peace talks through him, bypassing Hamas.
Hamas rejects the concept of a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East. Some Hamas officials have indicated they would accept a temporary Israeli presence if Israel pulls out of all of Judea and Samaria and allows millions of refugees to return to Israel - far from a starting point for talks acceptable to Israel.
In the past decade, Hamas has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel, killing hundreds, but the Islamic group has largely complied with a cease-fire announced in February 2005 by Abbas and then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at a summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik. There have been no summits since then.
Olmert's pullout plans are expected to top the agenda when he meets U.S. officials in Washington. That trip is expected to take place shortly after the new Israeli government is installed.
The planned pullout would follow Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last summer after 38 years of occupation. In recent weeks Gaza terrorists have fired daily barrages of homemade Qassam rockets at southern Israel from Gaza, and Israel has retaliated with artillery fire and air strikes.
Israeli and Palestinian Women Leaders Meet to Discuss Peace Talks
An international women's commission met with U.N. officials urging that women play a stronger role in talks between Israelis and Palestinians and use the newly elected Hamas government as a vehicle for peace negotiations.
Members of the International Women's Commission, comprising Israeli and Palestinian delegates, urged Wednesday that peace talks between Israel and Hamas continue despite the deep political disagreements on both sides.
"The more we say this is impossible, the more impossible we will make it," said Colette Avital, deputy speaker of Israel's Parliament, the Knesset, and a key presenter at the panel discussion.
Avital, a member of the Labor Party, pointed out that for the first time since 1967 the majority of Israeli parliament members openly support a peaceful resolution. While most consider it a "necessity" for coexistence, they also called for help from the U.S. government to succeed.
"For the past three or four years many of us have been advocating for the Bush administration to get out of its lethargy and to try to help us," Avital said. So far, the "administration has no great successes."
The Palestinian delegates agreed that American support was needed, but argued that while Hamas is subjected to international pressure to recognize Israel and renounce suicide bombers, it was elected in a democratic process and should be an equal partner in a two-state solution.
"In this kind of conflict there should be no losers. If one side feels defeated that is not peace," said Maha Abu Dayyeh Shamas, director of the Women's Center for Legal Aid, a Palestinian nonprofit organization. "We have to break the way things are being handled."
Members of the commission are traveling to Washington on Thursday to meet with members of Congress and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in hopes of triggering new peace negotiations.
"As women, we have a key role to play in meeting challenges and starting the longer-term process of rebuilding communities, reviving dialogue among all parts of society and showing that there are other ways to live," said Naomi Chazan, former deputy speaker of the Knesset and a member of the Meretz Party, who participated in the discussion at Norway's U.N. Mission.
The International Women's Commission, established in July 2005, works toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It comprises 20 Palestinian women, 20 Israeli women and 20 women from various countries around the world.
AP contributed to this report.
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