President Thabo Mbeki on Friday called for an end to all measures intended to isolate the Palestinian Authority and for the parties involved to renew their peace efforts.
Writing in his weekly newsletter on the African National Congress website, Mbeki congratulated Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khalid Mish’al, and the rest of the leadership of Fatah and Hamas, for concluding last week’s Mecca agreement.
All those who had long supported the struggle of the Palestinian people had watched in anguish as they tore themselves apart in an internal violent struggle, which had diverted them from their task of pursuing the goal of an independent state of Palestine as a united force.
The Mecca agreement had opened the way to end the fratricidal strife and allow the Palestinian Authority to focus on the challenging task of attending to the many and pressing needs of the people in the Palestinian occupied territories, he said.
”The conclusion of the Mecca agreement must surely serve as a firm signal that the rest of the world must now end all measures intended to isolate the Palestinian Authority, and thus show respect for the wishes of the Palestinian people and their decisions to determine their own internal affairs.
”Anything else will not contribute to advance the cause of peace between Israel and Palestine and the rest of the Middle East.”
The challenge facing the Israeli government was to respond positively to the Mecca agreement, among other things by releasing all funds due to the Palestinian Authority and adopting a positive posture regarding the tasks of reducing the misery afflicting the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and creating a climate conducive to the peaceful resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Ending the destructive conflict that had gone on for far too long would require the wisdom and courage of the more powerful.
”The positive results that both the Israeli and Palestinian people pray for will not come of their own accord,” he said.
They would come about as a result of conscious and deliberate actions, which had to be taken in the first instance by the more powerful.
It was imperative that the first step be taken, the first building block of peace put in place, without waiting for the perfect conditions for the construction of peace, because those perfect conditions would never amount to anything more than a dream forever deferred.
”The moment demands that all those charged with the responsibility to lead should dare to sue for peace, inspired by the same courage with which they have dared to go to war,” Mbeki said. — Sapa