World leaders Tuesday offered their formal embrace to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas but sent him home after a conference here with a clear message that his new government must crack down on militants threatening to undermine a 3-week-old cease-fire, including those behind a bombing Friday.
The one-day London conference yielded a 16-page statement endorsed by 23 nations and six international organizations praising Abbas, who was elected Jan. 9 to succeed the late Yasser Arafat. The statement from delegates, including UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, cited the new “sense of promise offered by a strengthened Palestinian Authority under a reinvigorated leadership.”
Although those in attendance only “strongly encouraged” the world to provide cash for a number of “urgent short-term financing needs” facing the Palestinians, the conference yielded an unambiguous path to peace, said British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the meeting host.
“We’ve got a script that is clearer today than ever before,” said Blair, with Abbas at his side, during a news conference Tuesday evening after the summit, which was held to shore up Abbas and support his reform efforts. Blair also said the Palestinian Authority and the international community are firmly committed to following that path, although Israel was absent from the forum.
Nonetheless, the statement issued after the conference also said participants “urged and expect action by Israel” in living up to its commitments in the peace process. It also called on Israel to work closely with Abbas’ government on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to evacuate settlements in the Gaza Strip this year.
Despite Blair’s optimism, potential obstacles abound, as evidenced by a terrorist attack Friday in Tel Aviv that claimed the lives of five Israelis and wounded 50. And Abbas’ chosen path does not have universal backing among Palestinians; a small group of protesters gathered on the damp streets near the conference center to condemn him as an American “puppet.”
Friday’s suicide bombing, for which the Damascus-based Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, was the first since Abbas and Sharon declared a cease-fire at a summit Feb. 8 in Egypt. The violence shadowed virtually every step taken by Abbas and the other leaders gathered in London, providing new urgency to longstanding calls from Sharon and the White House for the Palestinian Authority to dismantle the “infrastructure of terror” in the Palestinian territories.
The so-called diplomatic Quartet that is formally overseeing peace efforts–the U.S., Russia, the EU and the UN–had a meeting on the sidelines of the conference and issued a statement focused on the attack.
It called for “immediate action by the Palestinian Authority to apprehend and bring to justice the perpetrators” and cited “the need for further and sustained action by the Palestinian Authority to prevent acts of terrorism.”
Documents issued during the summit contained a plan from Abbas to restructure and reform notoriously corrupt or inefficient Palestinian Authority institutions and begin efforts to jump-start a Palestinian economy devastated by years of war and Israeli-imposed isolation. They also detailed promises from the international community to support specific efforts behind each reform, although new financial pledges were not mentioned.
Despite the dire needs, including an estimated $40 million-per-month deficit weighing down Abbas’ new government, the reform that drew the most attention was Rice’s pledge to have Washington take the lead in unifying and rebuilding Palestinian security forces, a key emphasis of the Bush administration’s plan for peace.
Rice said she would tell a U.S. security envoy, whose appointment she announced three weeks ago, that his “first, second, third and fourth job is going to be to coordinate the security assistance that is being offered to the Palestinians so that we can have viable, lawful security forces on the Palestinian side who answer to one voice and one government.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom continued to turn up the diplomatic heat on Abbas for a crackdown on militants, saying in a radio interview, “I am very sorry the Palestinian leadership is still hesitating over its need to fight terror.” But he did not signal any new Israeli intention to strike back.
Abbas again strongly condemned Friday’s attack, saying his government is taking steps to identify all those involved so it could “chase them down and punish them.” He also said his government is sincerely prepared “to exert 100 percent effort in the domain of security.”
But he seemed to signal frustration with what the Palestinians have seen as too much focus on security and not enough on the diplomatic process. Although his hand was clearly weakened by Friday’s attack, Abbas told delegates that security “is vulnerable to regression and even collapse if it is not protected by a serious political process,” according to a translated copy of his remarks.
He also said years of shattered efforts toward peace show “security measures in the absence of a serious political framework will not lead to the consolidation of security and opening of horizons for peace.”
