Today's Situation

REJECTIONIST POLICIES, July 10, 2007

The planned visit to Israel by a delegation from the Arab League - which was to have been the first-ever to the Jewish state by representatives of the pan-Arabian organization - has been postponed.

According to Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who was due to arrive in Israel along with his Jordanian counterpart, Abdul Ilah Khatib, on Thursday, the delay had been requested by Prime Minister Olmert for private reasons. Speaking in Washington, Aboul Gheit said that no new date had been set for the visit, but that he hoped that the two foreign ministers would still make the visit in July.

Although Aboul Gheit did not go into any details as to the reason for the postponement, official Arab League spokesman alluded to something more significant than 'personal reasons.'

'We will not give Israel the opportunity to use this as a public relations event because we want to get straight to the issue of peace,' Mohammed Sobeih declared.

Egypt said last week that the trip would be part of Arab League efforts to resume the peace process based on the Saudi peace initiative.

Israel was also on the receiving end of another rejection on Tuesday morning, according to Army Radio, which reports that Syria has rejected Olmert's offer to hold peace talks with President Bashar Assad.

In a historic interview with Saudi satellite station Al Arabiya, aired by Channel 10 on Monday evening, Olmert invited Assad to Jerusalem to talk.

In his first appearance on a major Arabic news station in over six years, Olmert, speaking in an office adorned with the blue and white Israeli flag, told his Hebrew-speaking interviewer: 'Bashar Assad, you know ... I am ready to hold direct negotiations with you, and you also know that it's you who insists on speaking to the Americans. The American president says: 'I don't want to stand between Bashar Assad and Ehud Olmert. If you want to talk, sit down and talk.'

When asked where he would hold such talks with Assad, Olmert said 'any place he [Assad] would agree to meet,' hinting that Assad would even be welcome in Jerusalem.

According to Army Radio, however, Syrian parliament member Muhammad Habash said late Monday night that Damascus did not believe Olmert's overtures were serious.

Countering this, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, also speaking on Army Radio, that Olmert indeed wants a resumption of negotiations with Syria and his offer was 'genuine and real.' Dichter was not optimistic, however, that Assad would agree to renew the talks. 'Bashar Assad apparently has other plans than making peace with Israel,' Dichter said. 'And now we will listen and wait.'

On the Palestinian front, outgoing deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh called Monday for the release of jailed West Bank Fateh leader Marwan Barghouti. In an interview with Channel 1 television after visiting Barghouti in jail, Sneh said he would be more useful outside prison than inside.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, said in an interview with Italian television RAI ahead of his meeting Tuesday in Ramallah with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, that Fateh will not resume its dialogue with Hamas. Abbas accused Hamas of opening the gates of Gaza to al-Qaeda. He added that the Gaza Strip is in danger and needs protection from the forces that have taken over.

Maariv reports on its front page that Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman has blames Israeli 'intransigence' for the delay in securing a deal for the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. According to the report, Egypt brokered a deal whereby Israel would free 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, but that Israel's insistence that it draw up the list of prisoners has nixed the deal.

Haaretz, meanwhile, leads with a claim that the military advocate general's office is planning to petition that High Court against the Winograd Committee, demanding that panel issue official warnings to anyone who could find themselves compromised by the contents of the committee's final report.

Finally, petitions to the High Court against the legality of remaining sections of the separation barrier could delay its completion until 2010, according to sources in the Defense Ministry quoted by The Jerusalem Post. The government originally said the 790-kilometer fence and wall would be completed within two years after it was approved in 2002.

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