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Peace Process

?Age of Palestinian excuses has ended?


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
February 04, 2005

After more than a decade of shirking its peace obligations under Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority can no longer make excuses for failing to honor its commitment to eliminate anti-Jewish terror, said Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom this week.

With Arafat’s demise and the election of Mahmoud Abbas as his successor, “the age of Palestinian excuses has come to an end,” Shalom told a gathering of the British-Israel Chamber of Commerce in Tel Aviv Wednesday evening.

Abbas “has at his disposal the means to stop the attacks on Israel's civilians and communities,” Shalom noted. “What he needs to show us - and to show his own people - is that he has the will to use them to bring Palestinian terror to an end.”

The foreign minister said Israel was ready to go to great lengths to make peace and facilitate the well being of the Palestinian Arabs if the PA continues to take “constructive steps” towards ending terror.

“We accept the Roadmap and we are ready to implement it, in accordance with its performance-based structure and sequence,” Shalom said.

Inadequate ceasefire

While “constructive,” Shalom reiterated that the Abbas-brokered hudna, or temporary terrorist truce, was in and of itself an insufficient move.

“A ceasefire is not the answer. It is an optical illusion, which will explode in our faces.”

“In order to prevent the terrorists from undermining the dialogue between the two sides,” Shalom insisted, “we must remove them completely from the equation, and dismantle their ability to strike.”

“There are no shortcuts in this process.”

No more photo-op diplomacy

Shalom said these issues and others would be discussed in depth when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas join Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak for a peace summit in the Sinai resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh next Tuesday.

“This summit is of critical importance to the future of our peace efforts,” Shalom said. “Its purpose is to address the issues head-on, not just to have another photo-opportunity.”

Israel, Shalom said, would “not tolerate a return to the pattern of terror in the morning, funerals in the afternoon, and negotiations and summits in comfortable hotels by night.”

Jerusalem’s willingness to work with the PA leadership would be henceforth based on a “test of actions, not of declarations,” and of “outcomes, not ceremonies.”

“We must remember:progress towards peace will not be possible without consistent and effective Palestinian action on the ground to end the terror against Israel’s civilians, as required by the Road Map,” said the foreign minister.

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