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When the Oslo process began in 1993, one benefit its adherents promised was a significant improvement in Israel’s international standing. And initially, it seemed as if that promise would be kept: 37 countries soon established or renewed diplomatic relations with Israel; a peace treaty was signed with Jordan; five other Arab states opened lower-level relations. But 16 years later, it is clear that this initial boost was illusory. Not only is Israel’s standing no better than it was prior to the famous handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat on the White House Lawn in September 1993, it has fallen...

Palestinian Sources have announced today that the leader of Fatah/President of the Palestinian Territories has decided he will step down because of a lack of progress in peace talks. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will not seek re-election in polls next year, reports suggest. Officials from the Palestine Liberation Organisation told journalists in the West Bank that Mr Abbas "insists on not running" in the 24 January election. A aide to Mr Abbas said earlier a lack of progress in peace talks with Israel and failure to achieve reconciliation with Hamas could prompt such a move. But another aide said...

Israel has been placed on alert for the prospect of widespread Palestinian violence throughout the West Bank. Officials said Israel's military, police and intelligence services were ordered on high alert after the military has assessed that the ruling Fatah movement, in cooperation with elements within the Palestinian Authority, were organizing civil unrest as well as ambushes on Israeli soldiers and civilians. Officials said PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been pressed by senior members of Fatah to approve what was termed a "third intifada," or uprising. "Abbas doesn't have to actually approve anything," the official said. "He just has to remain...

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's foreign minister says there's no chance of ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for many years. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says efforts to reach a final peace deal have failed since the first accord between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993. Lieberman says it's unrealistic to think a long-term agreement on ending the conflict can be reached at this time and that whoever thinks an agreement can be reached soon just doesn't understand the situation.

Canadian MP: Mahmoud Abbas Purveys Anti-Jewish Incitement ArutzSheva Israel ...He also met with PA officials and told them that "hate breeds hate." Saying that Hamas, with "their charter with its genocidal objective, anti-Semitic ... http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127280

T.S. Eliot wrote memorably in The Hollow Men: Between the idea / And the reality / Between the motion / And the act / Falls the shadow. In the case of the peace process and all the great ideas for fixing everything in Arab-Israel relations, the shadow has been Palestinian leaders' unwillingness - and now also inability - to make a compromise agreement ending the conflict. Close examination of the movement's ideology, organization and structure shows why this is true. Many, or most, of the young guard prefer a deal with Hamas to one with Israel, and a return to...

JERUSALEM (AP) - President Bush, seeking to pull Israel and the Palestinians toward serious negotiations, said Wednesday that despite ongoing land squabbles and fears of violence he has high hopes that a Mideast peace pact can be achieved before he leaves office at the end of the year. "I come as an optimistic person and a realistic person - realistic in my understanding that it's vital for the world to fight terrorists, to confront those who would murder the innocent to achieve political objectives," Bush said as he began his first presidential visit to Israel. His first formal meeting was...

Brainchild of the KGB As Ion Mihai Pacepa, onetime director of the Romanian espionage service (DIE), later explained, the PLO was conceived at a time when the KGB was creating “liberation front” organizations throughout the Third world. Others included the National Liberation Army of Bolivia, created in 1964 with help from Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and the National Liberation Army of Colombia, created in 1965 with help from Fidel Castro. But the PLO was the KGB’s most enduring achievement. In 1964, the first PLO Council, consisting of 422 Palestinian representatives handpicked by the KGB, approved the Soviet blueprint for a Palestinian...

Western financial aid to the Palestinians has, I showed last week, the perverse and counterintuitive effect of increasing their rate of homicides, including terrorist ones. This week, I offer two pieces of perhaps even stranger news about the many billions of dollars and record-shattering per-capita donations from the West: First, these have rendered the Palestinians poorer. Second, Palestinian impoverishment is a long-term positive development. To begin, some basic facts about the Palestinian economy, drawing on a fine survey by Ziv Hellman, "Terminal Situation," in the Dec. 24 issue of Jerusalem Report: # Palestinian per year per-capita income has contracted by...

Will the real George W. please stand up? After seven years of fearlessly confronting evil, both rhetorically and militarily, the Bush Administration in Washington seems to have faded away, replaced instead by a meek shadow of its former self. Firm resolve has given way to disappointing frailty, as the shape and direction of US foreign policy increasingly resembles something taken straight out of Bill Clinton's playbook. Across the board, on nearly every major issue of the day, from Iran to Syria to North Korea, the Bush administration is in retreat, abandoning the principled stands of yesteryear and replacing them with...

Washington - Looking to the post-Bush era in American politics, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is attempting to enlist leading presidential candidates to support his renewed push for a settlement with the Palestinians. When Olmert was in the United States for the Annapolis, Md., peace summit, he took the opportunity to call each of the leading presidential candidates to brief them on the plans for engaging in final-status talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. “I found that all the candidates had a lot of good will toward Israel,” Olmert said later in a press briefing. “They were all very friendly...

When Did Mahmoud Abbas Become Mother Teresa? by Jack Engelhard In his meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, President Bush cited Mahmoud Abbas as “a reasonable voice among the extremists.” Speaking on Fox TV, even Charles Krauthammer labeled Abbas as a nice guy. (Or words along those lines.) Therefore, Abbas is to receive all the money and weapons he needs to stay in business along the “West Bank” (before Hamas comes in to take that over as well, using all the American-provided firepower that it stole right under the nose of Fatah.This Hamas takeover of the "West Bank" is sure...

THE War on Terror is over.Or, at least, the West seems to be declaring it so. We've had enough. There's been too much hostility. Too many lives lost; too many civil liberties trampled on. Too many Muslims offended. So we're pulling out. We'll just have to "dialogue" more - and fight less. Who sees any chance of winning militarily, anyhow? We'll have to work things out "politically" instead - offering "flexibility" and a willingness to compromise with the enemy. Just one little problem: The enemy has yet to sign on to ending the war. They have no desire to compromise...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will address the Israeli Knesset on Sunday evening as part of a congressional trip to the Middle East. The San Francisco Democrat is traveling with Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim member of Congress. They arrived in Israel on Friday. The lawmakers plan to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and to travel to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Ellison's spokesman, Rick Jauert.

Why is bloody reality messing up our fake peace?By Diana WestFriday, February 2, 2007 I've finally discovered what they call "linkage" between the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But, instead of seeing any connection between what goes on inside Iraq and that fraudulent "peace process" -- by which the one party wanting "peace" (Israel) is gradually destroyed by the other party using "process" (the Palestinians) -- I see linkage in the overall American approach to the two war zones. Our strategy is identical. In both cases, it is based on a complete and willful suspension of disbelief. It...

David Bedein Holds Up Cover Of Abu Mazen's Book On Monday, the Israeli government issued vehement denunciation of the conference convened by the Iranian government in Teheran to promote the denial of the mass murder of the Jews in World War II, in an act of holocaust denial. Our news agency asked the spokespeople of the government of Israel if they would also denounce the leader of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, for the holocaust denial which has been an integral part of his legacy. However, the government of Israel would issue no such...

The Last Youth Standing - What the West and Islam share are elites detached from their own demographic realities Mark Steyn - November 20, 2006 I was watching Mansbridge One on One the other day. Don't ask me why. May have been an "encore presentation." Or more likely an encore presentation of an encore presentation. For a 24/7 news network, there's an eerie timelessness about CBC Newsworld: one would be only mildly surprised to switch on and find Mansbridge One on One with Lester B. Pearson or Sir Charles Tupper. Anyway, this week, the one he was on was the...

Three days ahead of his trip to Washington D.C., Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged on Thursday night to make substantive offers to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. "I am ready day and night, I am ready anytime, any place, without preconditions to sit down and talk. He [Abbas] will be surprised how far we are prepared to go," Olmert said in a public interview with Sky's Adam Boulton at the Conference for Export and International Cooperation in Tel Aviv. "I can offer him a lot," he added, but did not elaborate. The two leaders have not met officially since Olmert...

The Associated Press UNITED NATIONS — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly Thursday that the planned national unity government will recognize Israel. The Hamas-led Palestinian government that won elections in January has refused to recognize Israel, end violence, and honor past agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Abbas heads. Abbas told the assembly's annual ministerial meeting that he has recently sought to establish a government of national unity "that is consistent with international and Arab legitimacy and that responds to the demands of the key parties promoting Mideast peace _ recognition, ending violence and...

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet President Bush in New York next week and will likely seek to promote his planned coalition with Hamas, a Palestinian official said Saturday. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the meeting with Bush would take place Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. The White House would not confirm the meeting and it was not clear whether Bush's final schedule in New York had been set. The two men last met in October 2005 in Washington. Abbas, a moderate who leads the Fatah Party, and the militant Islamic group...

The Ain al-Hilwe Palestinian refugee camp in the Lebanese port city of Sidon has been infiltrated by some 200 al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists who are using it as a base for planning and launching attacks, Lebanese intelligence officials told the London-based Sunday Telegraph. The officials blame the terror group, which calls itself Esbat al-Ansar (League of Warriors), for a rocket attack on the Future TV station in Beirut last Saturday night. The blast devastated the newsroom of the station, which is controlled by Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, but caused no injuries as no one was on duty at the...

One of the baffling issues of this world, one that I can never hope to understand, is why so many on the left support the Palestinian cause against the Israelis. No matter where in history you go back to as a starting point to try to justify the position and rights of one party or the other, any reasonable person sees the hopelessness of any other starting point but the UN action creating the partition into a Jewish state and a Palestinian state in 1947.

How [radical] Islam makes one into a fascist, whether you are Arab, black, etc. The broader view of the deep & wide reality of Islamofascism What do the Arab Muslim massacre in NYC WTC, The Pakistani Muslim bombing in London, the Arab Muslim bombing in Madrid, an Indonesian attack on Australians in Bali, an Arab Muslim racist attack on an ordinary Jew in Paris, Arabs' onslaught in the genocide campaign in Sudan, WW2's Bosnian Muslims attacking Christian Serbs, Jordanian Arab murderer: Zarqawi that seperated (Nazi style) between Shiite & Sunni kids on a bus, Arab slave masters in Mauritania, a...

Excerpt - Palestinian security services recently obtained intelligence information regarding plans by Islamic Jihad to assassinate Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Security around Abbas was beefed up substantially in the wake of these alerts. Sources close to Abbas reported the matter in talks with Israeli security officials. According to these sources, Islamic Jihad operatives plan to kill Abbas by means of a car booby-trapped with a large amount of explosives. Since Abbas took over as PA chairman, upon winning an election last January in the wake of Yasser Arafat's death, there have been several reports of intentions by Palestinian terror...

Italian journalist held hostage in Iraq Claire Cozens and agencies Tuesday August 24, 2004 Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, who has been missing in Iraq since last week, has been kidnapped by militants, according to a video broadcast today on al-Jazeera television station. His driver was found dead at the weekend in Najaf and today an Islamist group said it had abducted an Italian in Iraq, giving Silvio Berlusconi 48 hours to announce it was pulling his troops out of the country.

Missed Opportunities... Again The Palestinians ...have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity--Abba Eban, 1978 That quote, about the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, has been used by Israeli politicians and their supporters for decades now. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak extended it to the Palestinians as a whole. I have used the Barak version in a previous post myself. Sadly, Abba Eban's words seem more true now than ever and seem to be true of every aspiring Palestinian leader on the scene today. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, now leading his new centrist Kadima (literally "forward") party,...

Friday, November 25, 2005 Opening Rafah: A Recipe For Disaster Today the border crossing at Rafah was opened with much fanfare and very positive news coverage worldwide. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas took part in a ribbon cutting ceremony marking the occasion which will give the Palestinians a border with Egypt free of Israeli supervision. Perhaps ominous were some of President Abbas' comments, in particular: The achievement we are celebrating today belongs first and foremost to the martyrs, wounded, prisoners, and all Palestinians who have sacrificed plenty in this struggle. Why is this ominous? He credits the intidafa and the...

This describes it typically, the "payback" of a 'Palestinian' patient, From Patient to Suicide Bomber When she's also using that sick excuse of the notorious Arab boy, which -- as turned out -- was only a "Palestinian" stunt & was in fact murdered by Arabs! - The Israeli Crime That Wasn’t) Video - Palestinian patient tried to blow up in the Israeli hospital where she was treated. "Palestinian" woman that wanted to blow up the very hospital was treated in. SUICIDE BOMBER WANNABE: Wafa al-Biri, a 21-year-old Palestinian woman, attempted to kill the doctor who had saved her life. But...

What is the price of trying to make life easier for the Palestinians? A simple answer: murder most foul. Israel voluntarily removed roadblocks; so terrorists in a Fatah group, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, put stolen Israeli license plates on a car, sped by a crowd at a hitching post, and opened fire with automatic weapons. Three young Israelis, including a 15-year-old, were killed, and four others were wounded. Now the entire Palestinian population will have to bear the burden of tighter Israeli security. To protect its citizens, Israel has to ban all private Palestinian cars from the main roads, rebuild...

ARAB RACISM & ISLAMIC JIHAD!!! Are Militant Muslims DECAPITATING Tourists in S. Philippines? IT'S ARAB MUSLIM FANATICS' RACISM + JIHAD!!! Did Sadistic Saddam attack Arab Kuwaiti 'brothers' tortured them horrifically? IT'S ARAB MUSLIM FANATICS' RACISM + JIHAD!!! Did Sadistic Saddam BUTCHER/GASSED/TORTURED HIS OWN PEOPLE? IT'S ARAB MUSLIM FANATICS' RACISM + JIHAD!!! Do Arab Muslim Militant Hamas/Islamic-Jihad/other 'Palestinian' Militants (& often Fatah - connected to the official 'Palestinian' authority) TARGET BABIES, (not as the West targets terrorists) Yes or no? IT'S ARAB MUSLIM FANATICS' RACISM + JIHAD!!! Did Arab Islamists attack French subways? (1985) IT'S ARAB MUSLIM FANATICS' RACISM +...

Sharon is criticized for SUPPOSEDLY not acting, but Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is "understood" as a "moderate" in his green-light to terror, or even in his direct responsbility.

New Palestinian Names for HAMASastan Settlements By Debbie Schlussel For someone who claims (and we all know he's lying) that he's against terrorism and opposes HAMAS, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sure isn't acting like it. In the first official acts following the Gaza giveaway, Abbas' cabinet secretary general, Samir Huleileh, announced that the PA is discussing new names for the evacuated Jewish settlements and surrounding infrastructure. Among the proposed names are Yasser Arafat, and HAMAS founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. In the past, Abbas--in his first act as then-Palestinian Prime Minister--named a town square in Ramallah, "Al...

'Major Jihad has begun' Abbas says Jihad to build Palestinian homeland is starting, adds, 'We must explain to the world that he who continues with the security fence and settlements does not want peace.' Hamas holds rally in Gaza's central square, says it will not stop attacks against Israel, despite withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza Strip By Ali Waked Today the small jihad to free our land has ended and the larger jihad to build our homeland has begun, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday in a speech to high school students in Gaza. Hamas: Ready for...

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to do more to combat violence in the Middle East. Ms Rice praised the president for the steps already taken towards security reform, but said it was insufficient. "Much more needs to be done particularly to actively use the security forces to combat lawlessness, and to combat terrorism," she said. Ms Rice was speaking after talks with the Palestinian leader in Ramallah. Withdrawal plan Ms Rice is on the first leg of a two-day regional tour aimed at boosting the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians....

JERUSALEM – Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas reinstituted the official death penalty this week in direct response to a recent episode of Hamas carrying out an "honor killing" that humiliated the Palestinian leader in his own media, a senior PA official told WND. The PA Sunday enforced its first executions in three years, killing four convicted murderers in an apparent attempt to deter criminals and send a message to the public that law and order are being restored. The Palestinian government in 2002 suspended the death penalty under intense international pressure. About 50 Palestinians are currently on death row, some...

Palestinian security forces in Ramallah on Monday arrested a suspect in the murder of Samir Rantisi, a local journalist and spokesman for former PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. Rantisi, 42, had for years urged Palestinians to endorse non-violent methods in their confrontation with Israel and was strongly opposed to suicide bombings. He was murdered early Monday morning while he was sleeping in his bedroom in the Sateh Marhaba neighborhood. A lone gunman who broke into his apartment in the Shkukani Building shot him twice in the head in front of his wife. The wife managed to identify the suspect,...

The era of suicide bombing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be over and the culture of violence is changing in the region, said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in an interview aired on Sunday. Abbas made his comments hours after Israel's government agreed to release 400 Palestinian prisoners and days after landmark talks with President George W. Bush, who sought to strengthen the Palestinian leader, in part, by not demanding publicly that he crack down on militants. In an interview broadcast on ABC-TV in the U.S. last night, Abbas renewed calls for Hamas to renounce violence and enter into dialogue with...

JERUSALEM -- An official Palestinian Authority information website directly affiliated with President Mahmoud Abbas has published on its Arabic language section a copy of the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion,'' a classic anti-Semitic forgery, while the English section does not contain the work, WND has learned. Abbas recently had been credited by the U.S. and Israel for fighting anti-Israel incitement. Al-Nakba.com, the official Internet website of the Palestinian State Information Service, SIS, published an Arabic translation to the ''Protocols,'' a notorious forgery authorized by the anti-Semetic Czarist police in early 20th-Century Russia that purports to be minutes of a...

May. 15, 2005 19:25 | Updated May. 15, 2005 22:47 Who's the Palestinian president? By KHALED ABU TOAMEH Farouk Kaddoumi addresses the United Nations Photo: AP RAMALLAH The PLO executive committee's recent decision to declare Mahmoud Abbas as President of the State of Palestine has enraged veteran PLO leader Farouk Kaddoumi, who has dismissed the move as illegal and unacceptable. Kaddoumi, who is based in Tunis, said in a message he sent to many PLO and Fatah leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that the executive committee did not have the authority to relay the powers of the...

May. 15, 2005 23:07 | Updated May. 15, 2005 23:20 Mofaz paints dim picture of PA security situation for cabinet By HERB KEINON Israel views any attempt to develop a Kassam rocket in the West Bank as a "ticking bomb" and will take the necessary military action to thwart it without first asking the Palestinian Authority to act, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the cabinet Sunday. "The minute there is information about Kassam rockets we act," Mofaz said in answer to a question about the Palestinian rocket arsenal. Mofaz said that today in Gaza there were Kassam rockets with a...

GAZA (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas has charged Palestinian officials with the task of disarming hundreds of militants wanted by Israel within two weeks, a Palestinian security source said on Sunday. Abbas also named an interim national security chief to replace Haj Ismail, who resigned on Saturday after being asked to quit for failing to halt lawlessness, an official said. Both steps were prompted by Thursday's rampage by Palestinian gunmen, who fired at Abbas's compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah in protest at a request by the Palestinian Authority that they lay down their arms. Abbas is struggling...

PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: Earlier today, President Bush telephoned Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to express deep sorrow after the wounding by U.S. forces of freed hostage Giuliana Sgrena and the killing of a member of her Italian escort in Iraq. Also today, Syrian President Bashar Assad announced a two-stage pullback of his forces to the Lebanese border, but failed to address broad international demands that he completely withdraw Syria's 15,000 troops after nearly 30 years in the country. Assad also did not respond to President Bush's demand just a day earlier that Syria withdraw all its troops and...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in London, March 1, 2005. Rice cited what she called "firm evidence" that the Islamic Jihad militant group helped plan last week's Tel Aviv suicide bombing from Syria. Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair meets Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for bi-lateral talks at the "Supporting the Palestinian Authority" meeting in London. Rice used the meeting to confirm that a U.S. military security expert would "soon relocate to the region to lead our efforts." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during their meeting in London, March 1, 2005. Israelis and Palestinians...

'Odelia was the life of the party' Critically injured woman dies days after attack; Abbas says he will not tolerate terror attacks By Doron Sheffer and Efrat Weiss Odelia Hobera The aftermath of the bombing Photo: Ofer Amram Abbas says he will not tolerate terror attacks against Israel Photo: Channel 10 The Tel Aviv bombing death toll rose to five on Monday, after 26-year old Odelia Hobera from Jerusalem died from her injuries. Dozens of family and friends gathered at the Hobera family home to pay their last respects. Odelia's brother Alon, told Ynetnews she lived life to the fullest...

WORLD Abbas: 'Peace is possible' Palestinian conference set for Tuesday in London Monday, February 28, 2005 Posted: 6:18 AM EST (1118 GMT)Attacks such as Friday's suicide bombing "will not be tolerated" by the new Palestinian leadership, Abbas said. (AP PHOTO) LONDON, England (CNN) -- Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said he believes peace with Israel is possible -- but that an end to violence is a "mutual commitment" -- ahead of a conference designed to build support for the new Palestinian leadership. Abbas' comments were published Monday in Britain's Independent newspaper after a suicide bombing outside a Tel Aviv beachfront nightclub...

RAMALLAH, West Bank: Talks between the Palestinian leadership and the main factions, which were due to have been held in Cairo this week, have been cancelled after the weekend suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, officials said Sunday. "There are many reasons, but one of them is the operation in Tel Aviv," Jibril Rajoub, a member of the national security council, said. "There has been a problem with Israel refusing to allow many delegations to travel to Egypt to take part in the dialogue. We need time to arrive at an agreement and reach a shared vision for a new program,"...

OP-ED COLUMNIST It's good news, bad news time again for the Middle East. The good news is that what you are witnessing in the Arab world is the fall of its Berlin Wall. The old autocratic order is starting to crumble. The bad news is that unlike the Berlin Wall in central Europe, the one in the Arab world is going to fall one bloody brick at a time, and, unfortunately, Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa and the Solidarity trade union are not waiting to jump into our arms on the other side. No one is more pleased than I am...

Mideast summit raises peace hopes SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt — Grinning broadly, the two men clasped hands as they strained to reach across water bottles, their national flags and a bouquet of yellow and white flowers atop a wide table that spoke of the distance remaining between Israel and the Palestinians. The warm and lengthy handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, repeated three times for the cameras at a breakthrough summit at this Egyptian resort Tuesday, lifted spirits in a region that has seen hopes for peace dashed so often in four years of...

Last Update: 09/02/2005 19:57 Officials: Sharon, Abbas could meet within one week By Amos Harel and Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and The Associated Press Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas may meet within a week, senior Israeli and Palestinian officials said Wednesday. The meeting, to take place at Sharon's Sycamore Ranch in the Negev, could take place "in the coming days or a week," said senior Sharon advisor Ra'anan Gissin. Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath confirmed the meeting could take place within a week. Egyptian ambassador to return within 10 days Egypt's ambassador will...

Sharon And Abbas Agree To End 'All Acts Of Violence'SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Feb. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday declares to halt military action against the Palestinians after he agreed with Palestinian presidentMahmoud Abbas to a mutual ceasefire. "During talks with Abbas, we agreed to stop over four years of violence. Israel will cease its military activities against all Palestinians anywhere," Sharon said at the close of the one-day summit in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. "Today we are moving toward goal of peaceful, dignified, quiet lives for all nations in the Middle East,"...