Saudi Arabia to negotiate peace on-behalf of the Palestinians, Abbas two decisions in less than 24 hours

Saudi Ara­bia proposal

Sources told Pales­tin­ian news­pa­per Al-manar that the Amer­i­can Admin­is­tra­tion is study­ing a Saudi pro­posal that Arab coun­tries to nego­ti­ate peace with Israel on-behalf of the Pales­tini­ans, because of the com­pli­ca­tions of the nego­ti­a­tions and its con­se­quences on the region.

Sources believed that the Amer­i­can admin­is­tra­tion strongly sup­ports this pro­posal and Con­deleezza Rice will dis­cus this issue with the Israelis in her visit to the Mid­dle East.

Abbas changed his decision

This report on Al-Akhbar reveals what’s behind Abbas’ chang­ing posi­tion from “sus­pend­ing the peace talks with Israel” to “Resum­ing the peace talks with Israel” in less than 24 hours.

Pales­tin­ian sources told the news­pa­per: In Con­deleezza Rice meet­ing with Abbas yes­ter­day, she gave him a pri­vate, strong mes­sage from George Bush using a harsh lan­guage, reject­ing Abbas deci­sion to sus­pend the peace nego­ti­a­tions with Israel.

Bush’s mes­sage accuses Abbas of being an obsta­cle in the nego­ti­a­tions process and not giv­ing the oppor­tu­nity for the Pales­tin­ian nego­tia­tors make their own deci­sions with­out report­ing to Abbas first.

Rice started her visit to the Mid­dle East in Egypt where she met Hosni Mobarik, Egypt­ian sources told the news­pa­per that Mobarik asked Rice to exer­cise more pres­sure on Olmert, com­plain­ing that Israel oper­a­tions and aggres­sions in Gaza are embar­rass­ing the Egypt­ian and mod­er­ate Arabs posi­tion, and the extrem­ists are ben­e­fit­ing from the pub­lic opinion.