Arafat Seeks Practical Steps to Statehood

13/05/2001| IslamWeb

JERUSALEM (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has welcomed U.S. support for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, while accusing Israel of practicing state terror against a 13-month Palestinian uprising.But despite the verbal backing at the U.N. General Assembly, no new peace moves were apparent and Arafat faced further pressure to crack down on Palestinian Resistance.
Israel said on Sunday that -- despite U.S. pressure -- it was delaying the withdrawal from two Palestinian cities re-occupied last month after the killing of a right-wing cabinet minister in revenge of the assassination of a leftist Palestinian Resistance leader.
It said it had delayed the pullback due to warnings of new attacks.
Arafat, meanwhile, was attending the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
``I would like to express my deepest appreciation...We welcome the positive positions declared by President George Bush and other leaders who have called for the establishment of the Palestinian state,'' Arafat told the United Nations.
He said reviving Middle East peacemaking would not be possible through ``interim solutions,'' as advocated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and called on the international community ``to exert every possible effort to convert this vision (a Palestinian state) into a realistic political track.''
Arafat told the gathering focused on terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States that ``state terror is being practiced against the Palestinian people.''
Israel has repeatedly accused the Palestinian Authority of backing attacks against Israelis since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted in September 2000 shortly after peace talks stalled.
In an apparent attempt to appease both sides, Bush called on Saturday for an end to ``incitement, violence and terror'' and for creation of a Palestinian state based on U.N. resolutions.
But Bush decided against a first-ever meeting with Arafat in New York, to the dismay of Arab commentators who called for heavy U.S. mediation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as Washington tries to cement Arab support for its anti-terror war.
``We need to see action from Chairman Arafat and the Palestinian Authority,'' Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, told ABC.
``Until there is a real effort at the cessation of terrorism, it's going to be very hard to get the peace process going,'' she said.