Mubarak: Arabs ready to assist Obama on Mideast peace

Blair can see Palestinian state ‘within the year’

By ICEJ News

19 Jun 2009

In an op-ed column published in The Wall Street Journal on Friday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak asserts that the Arab world appreciates US President Barack Obama’s willingness to take a strong leading role in the Middle East peace process, and that the Arab states are ready to cooperate in this effort.

“A historic settlement is within reach, one that would give the Palestinians their state and freedom from occupation while granting Israel recognition and security to live in peace," wrote Mubarak. "Egypt stands ready to seize that moment, and I am confident that the Arab world will do the same.”

“Israel's relentless settlement expansion, which has seriously eroded the prospects for a two-state solution, must cease, together with its closure of Gaza," he continued. Mubarak failed to mention, however, Egypt’s own closure of its border with Gaza due to its mistrust of Hamas.

"The priority should be to resolve the permanent borders of a sovereign and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, based on the 1967 lines, as this would unlock most of the other permanent status issues, including settlements, security, water and Jerusalem," wrote Mubarak.

Meantime, Quartet envoy Tony Blair told Al Jazeera's English-language channel interviewer David Frost on Friday that a comprehensive Middle East peace is possible "within the year.”

“If President Obama gets the right partner, on the Israeli side but also on the Palestinian side, his determination to do this I have no doubt about at all," he said. “I think the Obama speech [in Cairo] was really a huge event… The important thing is to understand that President Obama doesn't need cheerleaders. He needs people who are going to help him achieve what he wants,” Blair added.

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