Abbas: Settlement construction contradicts UN resolutions

WASHINGTON - Saudi Arabia, the Arab League and the Palestinian Authority urged the United Nations Security Council on Friday to save the faltering Middle East peace process by demanding an end to Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory.

Saudi Arabia requested the debate to coincide with the General Assembly, which has brought a host of world leaders to New York. Israel's last-ditch efforts to prevent athe meeting failed. One of the Arab leaders to attend the discussion was Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Palestinian president presented during the debate maps starting from 1937. "Here we hope to establish a Palestinian state which will live in peace alongside Israel," he said.

"Since 1967, Israel has been constructing settlements in the Palestinian territories. Ten Council resolutions have been adopted to prevent settlement activity. All the resolutions denounced the settlement policy.

"There is also a resolution addressing Jerusalem, in which the Council determines that building settlements in Jerusalem is illegal. Despite all your resolutions, nothing has changed," Abbas argued.

Abbas presented a map of the three Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank, and warned, "They are enabling the establishment of a sequential state, dividing the West Bank into cantons.

"This activity is an obstacle to peace and is preventing solutions in terms of the borders, the water and Jerusalem. How can one talk about an independent, continuous state? The first chapter of the Road Map and the Annapolis Conference talks about halting the settlement policy. Nothing has been done. The same policy continues."

The Palestinian president went on to accuse the settlers of harassing Arab residents and invading Palestinian villages, in addition to the military operations and the curfew imposed on the residents. "The residents are murder victims," he claimed.

Abbas clarified he would "continue negotiating with (Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert and won't stop talking with his successor as well. We have no plans to give up this chance, but we demand that the Security Council insist on the implementation of the resolutions adopted.

"There are about 20 Security Council resolutions which have not been adopted. If we fail, we all know the alternative. The entire region will deteriorate into another round of violence," he warned.

'Israel ready for painful concessions'

Israel's new Ambassador to the United Nations Prof. Gabriela Shalev turned to the Arab leaders, saying that peace could be only be advanced through a dialogue rather than through such Security Council debates.

"The Security Council discussions are irrelevant and pointless. The real things are taking place two floors below us in a bilateral meeting between Abbas and (President) Shimon Peres."

The ambassador added that the settlements were not an obstacle to peace. While settlements remain a delicate issue, they are not the principal one. You must remember that the Jewish nation is also sensitive about this sacred land.

"Israel understands its commitment to peace. Do you, the Arab states, understand your commitment?" she asked, adding that those who want to help peace must assist in the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

Shalev said that a stranger visiting the UN might suppose from the debate that Hamas violence, missile attacks fired over Israel's border, the buildup of Hizbullah forces in Lebanon and Iran's nuclear ambitions posed no problem to the Mideast peace process.

"We in Israel are committed to a two-state solution," Shalev said. "We continue to negotiate with the Palestinian president."

"Israel is prepared, if the conditions arrive, to make painful concessions" on the settlement issue, she added.

Rice slams Ahmadinejad speech

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reminded the council Friday that "just one year ago, there was no peace process," and noted that Israel and the Palestinians continue their negotiations, along with many other partners.

Rice also took the occasion to denounce Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who she said had told the General Assembly just this week that "another member of this body should be wiped from the map, should not exist."

"That should not be allowed," Rice said, and added that if the council feels it needs to meet again on threats to peace in the Middle East, it ought to focus on the Iranian president's remarks.

On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad lashed out at Israel before the UN General Assembly, saying "the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse, and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters."

"I do not believe that the Iranian people as a whole hold these views," Rice told the Council on Friday,"but their president has said that another member of this body, the United Nations, should be wiped from the face of the map, should be destroyed, and should not exist. That is simply unacceptable," she told the Security Council.

"And when this Council decides what really needs to be taken up as a threat to international peace and security, that, to me, makes the top of the list," she said.

"The United States of America will be asking that the Council convene again to take up the matter of one member of the United Nations calling for the destruction of another member of the United Nations, in a way that simply should not be allowed, if you will pardon my saying so in polite company."

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at the opening of the session, "No regional crisis has greater potential to affect world peace than this conflict, the actions of good faith and intransigence of the Israeli government compounds the problem. Instead of an honest quest for peace, Israel continues to take more and more of Palestinian territory."

He said the settlement problem was the "one issue that threatens to being down the whole peace process" and that addressing it was the only way to save the peace deal brokered in Annapolis, Maryland, early this year by the administration of President George W. Bush, with the goal of achieving a peace accord by the end of 2008.

Saud called on Israel to "cease all settlement activity, including the issuance of permits."

Amr Moussa, speaking for the Arab League, noted that "there are only three months left in the year 2008 and there is no sign" of a Palestinian state emerging.

He called on Israel to work against the settlement construction and practice coexistence and peace in the Middle East. He said bloodshed was unnecessary. "We want peace and need decent mediation to advance the process," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report