Saudi cabinet urges Arab countries to brush aside differences, calls for Arab, int'l steps to investigate Israel's crimes in Gaza

Mitchell's talks in Egypt, Israel, West Bank focused on opening crossings, preventing flow of arms within preparations to resume roadmap peace plan after Israeli elections

Olmert accepts Arab peace initiative, offers draft to exchange lands with Palestinians

Egypt denies any amendments to peace treaty with Israel

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud chaired the Cabinet's session which was held at Al-Yamamah Palace.

At the outset of the session, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques briefed the Cabinet on the overall meetings, contacts and consultations which he held with leaders of brotherly and friendly countries as well as officials of international bodies and organizations and their envoys.

Also, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques briefed the Cabinet on the meetings which he held with Arab leaders in Kuwait during the Arab Economic, Development and Social Summit (Summit of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in Gaza). Moreover, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques briefed the Cabinet on the telephone calls which he received from President Barack Obama of the United States of America and U.S. Secretary of State.

During the telephone calls, the King stressed the Palestinian cause as well as the sufferings of the Palestinian people during the criminal aggression against Gaza Strip and the punishment of Palestinian people in Gaza Strip without any regard for the humanitarian values and ideals and international calls.

In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) following the meeting, the Minister of Transport, Acting Minister of Culture and Information, Dr. Jubarah bin Eid Al-Suraysri said that the Cabinet stressed the importance of the speech delivered by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques at the Arab Economic, development and Social Summit held in Kuwait Last week which (the speech) contained creative ideas for establishing joint action and which called for renouncing differences and division and stopping whoever wants to hamper the march of solidarity and the unity of stand.

The Cabinet praised the speech which contained wise visions that embodied the reality of and solution to the current Arab situation. The speck was also frank, clear, transparent, and keen on overcoming differences and strengthening cohesion among all Arab states so that Arabs can achieve the desired strength and victory, and can meet the challenges that face them.

The Cabinet called on all Arab countries to seize the opportunity to overcome differences, seek reconciliation and unite to serve the issues of the region's countries and peoples, particularly the Palestinian cause.

The Acting Minister of Culture and Information said Cabinet commended the positive outcomes of Kuwait Summit chaired by Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah as well as Kuwait Declaration and the Summit's decisions that covered various fields.

The Acting Minister of Culture and Information said the Cabinet saluted the brave people of Gaza for their steadfastness against the brutal attack of Israel which practiced heinous crimes and punished the entire people; the whole world has been witness to such crimes, yet Israel remained heedless.

The Cabinet called for Arab and international movement to carry out comprehensive investigation into the Israel's crimes in Gaza Strip as well as its killings of thousands of defenseless innocent people in Gaza Strip in addition to its widespread criminal destruction of property and infrastructure there. These Israeli acts are a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and it is necessary to hold Israel accountable for those crimes.

Dr. Jubarah bin Eid Al-Suraysri also said that the Cabinet emphasized that Israel had a chance for peace through the Arab peace initiative put forward at the Beirut Summit in 2002, quoting the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques as saying "That initiative which is on the table today will not remain on the table forever".

Dr. Al-Suraysri noted that the Cabinet reviewed a number of topics on its agenda and issued the following decisions:

The Cabinet reviewed the minutes of the Ministerial Committee of the Administrative Organization regarding a study on agriculture and the environment sectors and approved a number of procedures in this regard.

The Cabinet approved an agreement between the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Government of the People's Republic of China. The agreement, signed in Jeddah on 21/06/2008, concerns enhancement of cooperation in the field of constructing infrastructure.

The Cabinet approved the regulation of Agricultural Development Fund.

The Cabinet authorized the Minister of Agriculture - or his deputy - to sign a draft of an executive program of scientific and technical cooperation in the field of agriculture between the Ministry of Agriculture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources of the Republic of Tunisia.

Having reviewed the request of the Minister of Agriculture, Chairman of the Grain Silos and Flour Mills Organization, regarding the restructure of the Board of Directors of the Organization for three years, the Cabinet approved the following:

First: The renewal of the membership of the following members of the Board of Directors of Grain Silos and Flour Mills Organization for a period of three years as of 01/08/1429H as follows:

1- Saleh bin Moussa Al-Khalil, representative of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Member of the Board of Directors.

2- Abdulrahman bin Mohammed Al-Nimer, representative of the Ministry of Finance, Member of the Board of Directors.

3- Mohammed bin Abdullah bin Rashid Abunyan, representative of Private Sector, Member of the Board of Directors.

4- Rashid bin Abdullah Al-Rashid Al-Homaid, representative of Private Sector, Member of the Board of Directors.

Second: The appointment of Dr. Abdullah bin Abdullah Al-Obaid, representative of the Ministry of Agriculture, at the Board of Directors of Grain Silos and Flour Mills Organization for a period of three years as of the enforcement date of this decision.

Third: The continuation of the membership of Abdulaziz bin Saad Al-Shathri, representative of the Ministry of Agriculture, at the Board of Directors of Grain Silos and Flour Mills Organization under the Cabinet's decision No. (203) dated 01/08/1426H until the enforcement date of this decision.

The cabinet approved a number of appointments as follows:

1- Abdulkarim bin Abdulaziz bin Abdulkarim Al-Aidan as Case Affairs Adviser at Riyadh Region Governorate.

2- Saad bin Abdulaziz bin Saad Al-Saidan as Tax Advisor at Zakat and Income Tax Department.

3- Dr. Saad bin Saud bin Majed Al Faheed as Assistant Undersecretary for Planning and Development at the Ministry of Education (Girls).

4- Abdulkarim bin Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Hugail as Director General of Girls Education in Riyadh Region at the Ministry of Education.

Meanwhile, George Mitchell, the new US peace envoy visited Israel as the Obama administration signals its determination to tackle the Middle East conflict.

The veteran senator, who helped Northern Ireland end its protracted conflict, previously recommended that Israel halt settlement growth in the occupied territories and that Palestinians crack down on militant when he headed a 2001 task force to investigate the reasons for the outbreak of the Second Palestinian Intifada.

The main purpose of his first trip will be to explore the new complexities of the conflict, in particular the split of the Palestinian camp into the hard-line Islamist Hamas regime in Gaza and the more moderate Fatah administration in the West Bank.

After the latest war in Gaza, Hamas said it would consider a year-long truce with Israel, but Gazans hold out little hope for the talks and many are desperately trying to sell property in areas likely to be in the front line of Israel’s next assault.

Ayman Taha, a Hamas negotiator, said after discussions in Egypt that Israel must lift its blockade of the impoverished territory if it wanted to avoid renewed Palestinian rocket fire into its southern towns.

"Hamas listened to the Israeli proposal presented by [Israeli envoy] Amos Gilad and with it a proposal for a ceasefire for a year and a half, but Hamas presented a counterproposal of one year only," he said. Israel refuses to open the borders as long as there are Hamas members – whom it considers terrorists – on the other side.

Various proposals are under discussion in Cairo, including motions to introduce Egyptian, EU or Turkish monitors to supervise crossings and try to inhibit Hamas smuggling in more armaments.

But the negotiations are hobbled by the fact that Israel and Hamas refuse to talk to each other, while the two main Palestinian parties, Hamas and Fatah, are still squabbling over who will is the legitimate government and who will ultimately take control of the estimated $2 billion reconstruction money needed to tackle the massive damage of Israel’s three-week onslaught.

A senior European envoy who inspected the damage expressed the EU’s deepening exasperation at continually footing the bill for the seemingly intractable dispute between the two foes. "At this time we have to also recall the overwhelming responsibility of Hamas," said Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid. "I intentionally say this here - Hamas is a terrorist movement and it has to be denounced as such.

"Public opinion is fed up to see that we are paying over and over again - be it the [European] Commission, the member states or the major donors - for infrastructure that will be systematically destroyed," he added.

Egyptian officials have reportedly warned Hamas to push ahead with a deal as quickly as possible, warning them that if right-wing hawk Binyamin Netanyahu wins Israel’s February 10 elections, then the Islamists could “lose everything”.

And as Israel’s one-week, unilaterally declared ceasefire expired, Gazans braced for a new bout of blood-letting. “All it will take is for one rocket to land in Sderot and the Israelis will be back. They are just looking for an excuse to come finish us off,” said Muhammad al-Zeittay, 47, from Beit Hanoun, close to the border with Israel.

In Gaza’s outlying areas, closest to the border with Israel, residents kept one eye on the horizon for Israeli tanks, while children on rooftops challenged each other to spot Israeli drones or apache helicopters.

In what has become the “villa area” on the northern outskirts of Gaza City, middle-class Palestinians had planned a well-to-do enclave. Now, many are selling their property there and buying flats in the city centers, where they feel they will be more protected in the next military operation.

Mahmoud al-Darwid planned to build his family a house with “a bit of space”, but today he was asking about apartments in the heart of Gaza City’s downtown district.

As he discussed one promising flat, an Israeli F16 plane passed overhead. Grabbing his daughter, he quickly ran inside, only to emerge moments later carrying the 8-year-old, who was crying.

“The truth is nowhere is safe. We are scared everywhere.”

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told US peace envoy George Mitchell that Israel had offered in negotiations with the Palestinians to remove 60 000 settlers from the occupied West Bank, a newspaper said on Thursday.

"Sixty thousand settlers out of the quarter million living in the territories will have to leave their place of residence and return to the Green Line in the framework of the permanent status arrangement with the Palestinians," the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot quoted him as telling Mitchell.

The figures were among the "commitments to the Palestinians in... talks on the final-status arrangement" that he and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had held over the past year following the November 2007 relaunch of the peace process, it said.

On the issue of Jerusalem, one of the most sensitive of the decades-long Middle East conflict, "Israel agreed for the city to be divided, and for neighborhoods in east Jerusalem to be transferred to Palestinian sovereignty.

"The holy places would come under the administration of an international authority that would supervise access to them and which would ensure that believers of the three faiths be able to hold their religious practices without disturbance," the daily said.

"The prime minister says that Israel agreed to withdraw, in the framework of the permanent status arrangement, to the 1967 borders with border revisions that keep the large settlement blocs in the territories.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

"In return for annexing the settlement blocs, Israel would transfer to the Palestinian state that is established, territory in southern Israel -- on a one to one ratio," it said.

"The Palestinian state would have territorial contiguity by means of solutions such as elevated or underground roads between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

"On the issue of refugees, it was agreed that the 1948 refugees would not be able to return to Israel," it said, referring to the year when the state of Israel was founded.

The Palestinians "refused to sign a document of principles that would be put 'on the shelf' to be handled later by the next government," after the February 10 general election in Israel, the Yediot said.

Mitchell met Olmert on Wednesday as part of his maiden voyage to the region after being charged by US President Barack Obama to engage "vigorously" in order to resuscitate the lifeless Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

He was due to hold talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah later on Thursday.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni adamantly denied allegations Friday that she had "sold" Jerusalem in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and said she vehemently opposed such a deal.

The Kadima party chairwoman was accused by her top rival in the upcoming elections for the prime minister's seat, Likud party chairman MK Binyamin Netanyahu, of conspiring with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to offer the PA sweeping concessions that included dividing Jerusalem and internationalizing its holy sites.

Livni's spokesman firmly denied the allegations Friday afternoon, telling Israel National News, "The Minister believes that Israeli sovereignty -- religiously, nationally, culturally and strategically -- must be maintained over a united Jerusalem, including and foremost the religious sites."

The Israeli position negotiated by Livni, he said, was that "Jerusalem will be kept united."

"Minister Livni was not in the room with Prime Minister Olmert and Chairman Abbas when they had their conversation about this agreement. This is something that someone on the other side did," added her spokesman Gil Messing. "It was not the work of Minister Livni. She is against it in all terms that are possible to elaborate and she said so yesterday in the Cabinet."

It is equally clear, he warned, that even in a deal that Livni would support, Jews in Judea and Samaria would end up losing their homes. How many, he could not say. "I don't know the numbers. As many [sic] Jews will remain in their houses where they are right now, however, there will be a division of the land. It is untrue and unfair to say otherwise."

However, whether the plan would ultimately come to fruition will depend on the PA, he added. "It will be an agreement that will represent all of Israel's security needs, and is subject to any change of situation on the ground, including the fight against terrorism," he said, "most importantly the complete dismantling of terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian Authority areas."

According to the Hebrew-language daily Yediot Acharonot, Olmert agreed to give up Jerusalem's holy sites under an international authority in a plan similar to that of the "Holy Basin" concept advanced during the administration of former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Also under the plan, the Jewish State would transfer Arab neighborhoods in the eastern section of the capital to the PA. Interestingly, the move was predicted by Netanyahu Wednesday morning in a keynote address by at the Jerusalem Conference at about the same time that Olmert was meeting in the capital with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell.

The plan also calls for at least 60,000 Jewish residents to be expelled from their homes in Judea and Samaria, and Israel would withdraw from most of its territory in the region, with the exception of several large populated blocs. The operation would dwarf the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza, a move which has brought one million Israelis under rocket fire from Gaza, besides leaving thousands jobless and in transitional housing to this day.

The new Arab state that would be formed within Israel's current borders would also be provided with geographic contiguity through a series of tunnels and a new highway that would be built to connect Gaza with Judea and Samaria.

However, the prime minister refused to allow the immigration of millions of Arabs and their descendants who fled their homes in the State at the behest of Israel's invading enemies during the 1948 War of Independence, a demand the PA has called the "right of return."

A curious cloak of silence by local and international media stifled news of the agreement for almost 24 hours after the initial report was published in the Thursday morning front-page article in Yediot Acharonot. The paper reported that Olmert had closed on the deal with Mitchell during their meeting Wednesday and provided details about the plan.

However, by nightfall it was impossible to find a trace of the report, which had inexplicably disappeared from the media radar. An internet search revealed not one reference to the day's discussion, with the exception of a lone AFP article in a Philippine newspaper.

Olmert spokesman Mark Regev brushed off late-evening attempts by Israel National News to obtain information about the agreement. "You can ask me anything you want about it," he said," but I don't want to confirm or deny anything. It was a private diplomatic conversation," he said.

Netanyahu lost no time in going on the offensive Friday morning, telling listeners in an interview on IDF Army Radio that he would not uproot any Jews from their homes if he is elected prime minister in the upcoming polls.

The Knesset Opposition leader also said he would not be bound by any deals concluded by the prime minister, and accused Livni of making dangerous concessions in her role as head negotiator with the Palestinian Authority.

"She said she was a partner to all the decisions made by the Kadima government," he said. "Now we see what she decided and what she conceded."