The Palestinian foreign minister has called on Arabs to fulfil their promises of financial assistance to the Palestinian government. For their part, Arab officials, at a meeting between Mahmoud al-Zahar and the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on Saturday, urged the Hamas-led Palestinian government to consider an Arab plan to end the conflict with Israel that calls for exchanging land for peace. Al-Zahar said he would discuss the initiative with the others in the government but pointed out that Israel had not yet accepted the deal. "I will convey all that I heard to every decision-maker and make a clear picture about the initiative. But the problem is: Does the other party accept it?" al-Zahar said after a meeting with Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, and other Arab envoys.
At a summit in Sudan last month, the Arab leaders said a 2002 peace-for-land initiative is the Arab world's only option for ending the conflict with Israeli, suggesting that a Hamas government should accept the plan. Israel has never committed itself to the initiative. |