Free Republic

Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath slammed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's calls for an immediate resumption of negotiations as insincere. "He talks about making painful concessions, but he has not made a single concession on the ground," Shaath said in a Saturday interview with Channel 2, adding that twenty years of negotiations with Israel has led the Western-backed Palestinian Authority nowhere. Shaath stated that the United Nations bid did not contradict negotiations and asserted that the PA would enter negotiations if Netanyahu agrees to ban all Jewish construction in Israel's disputed Samaria and Judea regions. "Netanyahu must say 'peace is more...

Nov. 26, 2003 Italy to host Palestinian fundraising conference By ASSOCIATED PRESS ROME Italy will host an international donors conference for the Palestinians in mid-December, most likely Dec. 15-16, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Wednesday. Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath and Finance Minister Salam Fayad are expected to represent the Palestinian Authority, presenting the 2004 budget to donors at the Rome meeting, said the Palestinian envoy to Italy, Nimer Hammad. Israel will probably send a delegation, but it's not clear yet at what level, a diplomatic official said in Rome. Italy has requested ministerial-level delegations. The conference had been initially...

GAZA CITY, March 1 (AFP) - Yasser Arafat has called for a meeting next week to select a prime minister, as part of reforms demanded by Washington and Israel linked to the creation of a Palestinian state, a senior aide said Saturday. The Palestine Liberation Organization's "central council will meet from March 8 to 12 and then the parliament will convene to discuss the nomination of a prime minister," Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP. Arafat has been under intense pressure in recent months to reform his administration, accused by Israel and the United States of widespread corruption and links...