MIDDLE EAST:Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud Al Faisal has castigated Israel for approving the construction of 307 homes in Har Homa, a settlement located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
"The kingdom strongly condemns Israel's decision to expand settlement building in East Jerusalem, which contradicts the bases and principles of the Annapolis peace conference," he said yesterday.
He called upon the international community to stand "against settlement activity which empties the peace process of any meaning". Saudi Arabia and Egypt are pressing Fatah to reconcile with Hamas and reunify the Palestinian front.
Last weekend Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mishaal was summoned to Riyadh for talks with Saudi officials, while Cairo issued a call for a meeting of the factions after next week's Eid al-Adha, the feast celebrated during the annual pilgrimage or Hajj.
The US and Israel oppose reconciliation, but the Arabs insist that the authority must represent the entire Palestinian people when negotiating with Israel. If this is not the case, any outcome could be denounced and resisted by opponents led by Hamas.
In an open letter to US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Ahmad Yousef, the US-educated senior political adviser to Hamas premier Ismail Haniyeh, said Hamas did not have an "ideological aversion to making peace. Quite the opposite; we have consistently offered dialogue with the US and the EU".
He expressed the view of most Arabs when he wrote: "If you were even-handed in this conflict . . . then the chances of peace would dramatically increase.
"As it is, you are setting yourself up for failure and with that failure will come . . . a blank space in history for the Bush administration's role in making peace in the Middle East."
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