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Arab/Muslim States

'Arabs pressed for abundant international gathering'


By Stan Goodenough
November 23, 2007

According to news reports out of the United States, it was the Arab states - together with the Palestinian Arabs - that pushed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to invite a whole raft of non-Muslim and non-Arab state participation in next week's scheduled Annapolis conference.

The Washinton Post reports that "Arab officials had pressed for an abundant gathering of nations, so that the tableaux would not just feature Israel and its Arab neighbors."

Only 15 of the nearly 50 countries invited to send representatives to the November 27 US-sponsored event are Arab, and another five are Muslim.

At least half are neither, and include Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Mauritania, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The Arab states are believed to want these other nations present because they are known to be sympathetic to the "Palestinian" cause.

A central component in the PLO's action plan to secure the fullest possible achievement of its demands has for years been increased international involvement to counterbalance the United States' purported bias in favor of Israel.

With US President George W. Bush's "personal" commitment to the two-state "solution," however, Israel will find itself alone on the other side of the table.

All the odds will be stacked against the Jewish state being able to hold onto the biblical heartland of the Jewish people.

Apart from the pro-Palestinian nations, the organizations or groupings that have also been invited to Anapolis are singularly supportive of the Arab demands.

They include Quartet Special Envoy Tony Blair, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, the European Union and, of course the Arab League.

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