Palestine Blogs - The Gazette

Friday, 16 January 2009

Qatar, Mauritania cut Israel ties

Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, also called for Arab nations to cut ties with Israel Qatar and Mauritania have suspended economic and political ties with Israel in protest against the war in Gaza, Al Jazeera has learned.

The move announced on Friday followed calls by Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, and Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, for all Arab nations to cut ties with Israel.
Addressing leaders at an emergency Arab summit in Doha, the Qatari capital, al-Assad declared that the Arab initiative for peace with Israel was now "dead".

He said Arab countries should cut "all direct and indirect" ties with Israel in protest against its offensive in Gaza.

Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel and have Israeli embassies.

Summit demands

The Qatari-hosted Arab summit concluded on Friday with participants agreeing to present a Kuwaiti-hosted summit - to be held on Sunday - with a list of measures to end the conflict in Gaza.

Those measures include demanding that Israel stops its offensive in the Strip, is held responsible for "crimes" committed in Gaza and immediately re-opens all crossings.
The summit also agreed that all Arab countries should form a "sea-bridge" that would enable aid supplies to reach Gaza.

Speaking from Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, said Israel should be barred from the United Nations while it continues to ignore UN demands to end the fighting in Gaza.

"How is such a country, which totally ignores and does not implement resolutions of the UN Security Council, allowed to enter through the gates of the UN?" he said.
Erdogan's comments came hours ahead of Friday's official visit to Turkey by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.

The Turkish leader also added his voice to widespread condemnation of Israel's bombing of a UN compound in Gaza on Thursday.

"The UN building in Gaza was hit while the UN secretary-general was in Israel ... this is an open challenge to the world, teasing the world," he said.

Diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire have intensified over recent days with emergency meetings being held in Qatar, Turkey, Kuwait and Egypt.

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Source

After like at least 1,155 Palestinians were killed,... i say it's about time.

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