Amman - An imminent trip to the United States by Jordan's
King Abdullah II provides a 'historic' opportunity to revive the
Middle East peace process, prominent analysts and politicians said
Wednesday.
However, they told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that judging by
previous experience there are 'no guarantees' that the US
administration will respond to the monarch's warning against the
risks inherent in a failure to forge an early peace agreement between
Israel and the Palestinians.
'I think it is a historic trip by all standards during which the
king stands a very good chance of alerting both the US public and the
administration to the seriousness of a failure to ensure a resumption
of the peace talks,' said Mohammad Masri from the state-run Strategic
Studies Centre of the University of Jordan.
'But responding to the monarch's efforts is something else. We
don't have guarantees that this will happen,' he added.
King Abdullah arrived on Tuesday in London en route to Washington
and held talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the
prospects of bringing the Palestinians and Israelis back to the
negotiating table as soon as possible.
Over the past few days the monarch was also involved in a new
round of diplomacy that included visits to Egypt and Saudi Arabia to
formulate what officials described as a unified stance by the pillars
of the so-called Arab moderate camp.
In Washington, the Jordanian head of state is due to conduct talks
with President George W Bush, address a joint session of the two
houses of the US Congress and meet with leading shapers of US public
opinion.
'The monarch is trying to affect not only the US and Israeli
governments, but also the public opinion in the two countries,' Masri
said.
During an interview with the Israel's broadcaster Channel 2 last
week, King Abdullah cautioned against failure to resume peace
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians this year.
'There is a good chance the US administration will respond if the
king sways the (US) Congress over the urgent need for re-launching
the Middle East (peace) process, given the fact that the Democratic
Party has a majority in both houses,' he added.
Masri contended that King Abdullah's move would 'draw backing'
from two elements - the Saudi-brokered Mecca deal between the Fatah
group of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the ruling Islamist
movement Hamas, as well as the pan-Arab peace initiative that was
adopted by the Arab summit in Beirut in 2002.
The February 8 Mecca agreement provided for the formation of a
Palestinian national unity government that put an end to the internal
Palestinian fighting.
But the deal left a key issue unresolved - Hamas' recognition of
Israel.
Under the provisions of the accord, the hard-line group agreed to
'respect' the agreements already concluded by the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) with the Jewish state.
However, Israel and the United States so far demanded that Hamas
unequivocally comply with the Quartet's conditions - recognition of
Israel and renouncing violence.
Abbas, who has just wound up a European tour to muster support for
the Mecca agreement, said the Palestinian Authority, which he leads,
was the party concerned with resuming peace talks with Israel.
The Palestinian president and King Abdullah are teaming up to
convince the world's major donors including the United States and the
European Union to lift the financial siege they imposed on the
Palestinian Authority after Hamas scored a landslide victory in
January 2005.
Islamists, who form the backbone of the Jordanian opposition,
support the Mecca accord but cast doubt on the outcome of King
Abdullah's trip across the Atlantic.
'A solution for the Palestinian question lies with us and not with
them,' Secretary General of the Islamic Action Front, Zaki Bani
Ershaid, told dpa, referring to the Americans and Israelis.
'The objective of the trip cannot be the revival of the peace
process, because peace cannot be forged with those who are hostile to
peace,' he said.
He contended that the Jordanian government 'should use all the
cards at its disposal including the recall of its ambassador from Tel
Aviv.'
'We have a real opportunity to show due support to the Mecca
agreement and put real pressure on the United States, which is
currently facing a dilemma in Iraq,' Bani Ershaid said.
He cited Jordan's failure to force Israel to stop its excavations
near al-Aqsa Mosque as evidence that the Israelis and the Americans
were not going to respond to the king's peace endeavours.
The Israelis 'violate the Wadi Araba agreement (the Jordanian-
Israeli peace process of 1994). How can we then trust their
assertions that they want peace?' he said.
Under the peace pact, Israel recognized Jordan as custodian of all
Islamic and Christian holy places in East Jerusalem, which the Jewish
state captured from the Hashemite Kingdom in the 1967 Arab-Israeli
war.
Ayman Safadi, the editor-in-chief of Jordan's al-Ghad newspaper,
stated that the credibility of the moderate Arab states would be at
stake if King Abdullah's Washington mission failed.
'The United States should realize that the moderate Arabs are the
parties that can help re-establish security and stability in Iraq and
stand in the face of extremism and terrorism in the region,' he said.
'But, they are weak and their role lies in the restoration of
their credibility. A successful solution for the Palestinian issue is
the key to the rehabilitation of moderate forces and the addressing
of regional crises,' he added.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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