Has the time come? We need to watch carefully the events and WHO brokers this peace deal if it happens -- especially if it is a 7-year duration!
I remain,
SOROS
At midnight mass, moderate leader Mahmoud Abbas filled the seat that had been left empty for Arafat for three Christmases past because Israel had stopped him travelling to the West Bank town — accusing him of fomenting bloodshed, a charge he denied.
Welcoming Arafat’s successors, the Latin Patriarch for the Holy Land, a Palestinian, urged all parties to end violence.
“It has lasted too long,” Michel Sabbah, Pope John Paul’s representative, told the Church of the Nativity gathering.
“It is time for Palestine and Israel to defeat the evil of violence and give birth to a society of brothers and sisters in which nobody is subject to another, nobody is occupied by another and nobody threatens the security of another.”
Abbas, who wants an end to fighting and to resume peace talks with Israel, is expected to win a presidential poll on Jan. 9 to pick a successor to Arafat.
Amid the incense and prayers, the silver-haired Abbas in his business suit cut a profile far removed from ex-guerrilla Arafat, who favored olive uniforms and a checkered headdress. Abbas, like Arafat and most Palestinians, is Muslim.
“We extend our hand to the Israelis. We want to negotiate, to reach peace — a peace built on justice and right,” Abbas told a meeting in Bethlehem on Friday evening.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has also called 2005 a year of opportunity for peace in the Middle East. |
