US President-elect Barack Obama is planning to base his peacemaking efforts in the Middle East on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday, quoting sources close to Obama.AT AIPAC, OBAMA SAID THAT JERUSALEM SHOULD NEVER BE DIVIDED.
The Arab Peace Initiative, based on the Saudi peace plan of February 2002, calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from all territories taken in the Six Day War, including east Jerusalem, in exchange for normalizing ties with the Arab world.
Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu pledged on Sunday to continue talks with the Palestinians if elected prime minister, saying he would base such talks on economic development.MORE FROM BIBI:
Speaking at the Jewish Agency's General Assembly, Netanyahu said a government under his leadership would work to boost the Palestinian economy as a springboard for - and alongside - diplomatic talks.
"We need to make peace from the bottom up, rather than the top down, by improving the lives of Palestinians so that they have a stake in peace," he said.
The Likud leader called on the government to lower taxes and invest in transportation infrastructure, such as roads and railroads, to avoid a further economic slide.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, meanwhile, said Netanyahu's approach would destroy peacemaking because the US-sponsored talks that began last year are designed to achieve a treaty on all outstanding issues between Israel and the Palestinians.
"The time to speak about economics and fragmentation is over," Erekat fumed. "It seems to me that if Mr. Netanyahu thinks this is the course, he is closing the door to any chance for peace."
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Sunday accused opposition leader and Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu of "closing the door to any chance for peace," by insisting that regional talks focus on economic, rather than territorial issues. Netanyahu says he supports the concept of a separate Palestinian state, but opposes the current U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. He takes a hard line against ceding war-won territory and opposes partitioning Jerusalem, key Palestinian demands, and thinks talks should focus on economic matters.
Obama apparently has been convinced by his gaggle of mildly to extremely anti-Israel advisers that the best hope for change is to give a one-sided deal concocted by a rabidly anti-Israel, totalitarian religious monarchy another chance.
Putting aside the issue of whether any of the players on the Arab side of this eternally-recycling “land for peace” shell game can be trusted to keep their side of any bargain, there’s always the possibility that the Palestinian side (whoever that is; Fatah? Hamas?) will manage to screw it up, either by making the “right of return” a deal-breaker or by committing some heinous act of mass murder.
"Mark my words," Biden was quoted as saying. “It will be not six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember, I said it standing here, if you don't remember anything else I said: Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis ...
"He's gonna need help,” Biden said about Obama. “And the kind of help he's gonna need is…we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."