In a resolution released at the headquarters of the Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
in Cairo, the foreign ministers called the issue of Paleostinian refugees an integral part of a comprehensive and just peace.
It blamed Israel for the floundering of peace negotiations.
The Arab statement offers strong backing to Paleostinian leader the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
, who said publicly last week he will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state despite facing strong international pressure.
Abbas did not identify who is pressuring him.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week the Paleostinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state to show they are serious about peace.
It was the latest sign that despite seven months of mediation efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
, wide gaps remain between the two sides.
Abbas is due to meet US President Barack Obama
I inhaled. That was the point...
in Washington on March 17, as part of US efforts to press both sides.
He has said that the Paleostine Liberation Organization recognized the state of Israel in 1993 and that this is sufficient.
Netanyahu has already met Obama.
The current round of talks began in late July, but was plagued from the start by disagreement between Abbas and Netanyahu on the ground rules.
The Paleostinians want a state in the West Bank, Gazoo Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in 1967, and say talks about that state should use the 1967 border as a starting point.
That position is backed by the US but rejected by Netanyahu.
The seven-page Arab resolution on the Paleostinian issue said it rejects ''the demand by Israel and some international parties to identify Israel as a Jewish state, which aims to annul the right of return and compensation for Paleostinian refugees.''