Oil Exporters Ignore Iran’s Call for Embargo Over Gaza War

Hello from Lahore, Pakistan!  I just arrived today and plan to base here for at least the next six months.  There is so much going on here at the moment that I feel very fortunate to have a front row seat.  I am extremely eager to hear about new and interesting story ideas here in the country so I invite you all to submit some suggestions.  

In the meantime, I wrote the story below in Dubai last week regarding calls for an oil embargo against supporters of Israel over the Gaza crisis.  As of today, about 1,000 Palestinians have been killed as the result of Israel’s attack on Gaza, most of them civilians.  Please consider ways in which you can help the poor people of Gaza rebuild after this destructive conflict with Israel.

by VIVIAN SALAMA

MIDDLE EAST TIMES

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Cozy economic ties with the West and cool heads have led the Arab Gulf’s leading oil exporters to ignore calls by Iran for an oil embargo against supporters of Israel over the Jewish state’s military offensive in Gaza. 

Mirfaysal Bagherzadeh, brigadier-general of Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard, has urged Muslim countries to cut oil exports to Israel’s allies as punishment for their inaction against the its “unequal war” on the Palestinian territory.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, responded this week saying that the use of oil as a weapon in the Arab-Israeli conflict is not a solution.

“The oil producers who need their income … are not going to do that,” he said at a news conference in Riyadh. “The use of oil, especially at this time, is an idea that is at least past its worth.”

The comments from Tehran echoed sentiments by members of Bahrain’s lower house of parliament earlier in the week that “all retaliation options” should be considered by Arab governments against the Israeli aggression.

While the tiny Gulf kingdom is not a major oil exporter, it is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

“Bahraini and Kuwaiti parliaments are quite renowned for nationalistic and even Islamist voices that do not necessarily reflect the position of their particular governments,” said Neil Partrick, assistant professor of international studies at the American University of Sharjah.

The renewed Israeli attacks in Gaza have claimed nearly 1,000 lives since they started on Dec. 27.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and a delegation of European Union foreign ministers have been meeting with Arab heads-of-state in an attempt to broker a cease-fire and bring both parties back to the negotiating table.

Israel’s government has been accused of heavy-handed tactics resulting in huge destruction of infrastructure and high civilian casualties.

Protesters have come out in large numbers in cities across the region demanding that their governments take action to stop Israel and make it take responsibility for the heavy losses.

A statement released this week by the Saudi cabinet accused “the policy of war, violence, murder and torture practiced by Israel against the Gaza Strip and throughout Palestine” as demonstrative of the “extremist political parties in Israel and abroad aiming at [the] restructuring of the region of the Middle East according to their terms.”

The Saudi government also criticized American nepotism toward Israel. Speaking at this week’s U.S.-Gulf Forum, the Saudi deputy foreign minister said that the United States has “adopted policies full of flaws against the Gulf nations and the Middle East while it has been extending all-out support to Israel.”

For countries in the Gulf, their oil wealth has historically proven to be a mighty weapon in times of turmoil. Flash back to the now infamous oil embargo by Arab producers during the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and the armies of Egypt and Syria. The boycott sent shock waves around the world – the market price for oil soaring almost immediately from $3 a barrel to $12.

Arab oil producers would subsequently take a hit, however, as consumption dropped by 5 percent over the following two years. The crisis served as a wake-up call for countries in the West to seek alternative sources of energy and ultimately, reduce dependency on oil imports.

Today, Saudi Arabia is the only major Middle East oil supplier to the United States. The United Arab Emirates, Oman and Iran sell mostly to Asia, while Kuwait divides its exports among countries in Asia and Europe, while sending only a small amount to the United States.

“So the phrase ‘we need to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil’ is actually a misnomer,” said Raja Kiwan, an energy analyst with PFC Energy, a Bahrain-based consultancy. “Most of [Iran's] oil is sold to Asia, so the comments by the Revolutionary Guard should be seen as political rhetoric.”

Like other oil producers in the region, Iran depends on oil revenue for as much as 90 percent of its foreign income – and is currently suffering as the result of plummeting oil prices. An export ban is therefore believed by analysts to be in no one’s interest – most of all, the oil producers.

“The GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] has no appetite for an oil embargo because the embargo of the 1970’s was quite damaging economically for the Gulf countries,” noted Partrick.

Martin Lovegrove, vice chairman of oil and gas for Standard Chartered Bank in London said that oil producers must consider the implications an oil embargo could have on their domestic economies.

“Some, if not the majority, of these countries would certainly have to tighten their belts should they have an embargo, and not just for the short-term,” he said.

“An embargo could increase prices again at a time of true economic sensitivity in the world financial, business and personal economic markets [and] this could delay any real term recovery in prices.”

Dubai ruler cancels New Years celebrations

I just received word from a friend in Dubai that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has ordered the cancellation of all New Year celebration in Dubai in support of the people of Gaza.

In a statement issued by the state news agency, WAM, late tonight, Sheikh Mohammed told authorities to take the necessary steps to ensure the cancellation of planned events and “all forms of celebrations marking the New Year.”

While it is nice to see that the Arab Gulf countries are taking measures to acknowledge the atrocities taking place in the Gaza Strip, they could be doing a lot more seeing as oil puts them in a position of great power and influence.

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Fireworks display near the Burj Al Arab hotel on Jan 1 2008 to welcome the New Year in Dubai. This year, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Prime minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai has ordered a cancellation of all New Year celebration. Pawan Singh / The National

Explaining Israel’s Military Strategy

by Vivian Salama

PostGlobal – WashingtonPost.com

It can be suggested that the build-up to this crisis in the Middle East began in 1967, when Israel earned itself a reputation – regionally and globally – as a military power to be reckoned with. In just six days, Israeli Defense Forces advanced to the edge of the Suez Canal, and in one foul swoop, gained control of Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, and the whole of Jerusalem.

It was not until the Yom Kippur War of 1973 that Israel’s military would fall from grace, not by a decisive defeat or loss of land, but more symbolically in the face of a somewhat attenuating Arab military resistance.

In 2006, Israeli forces launched an unforgiving attack on Hezbollah strongholds in Southern Lebanon responding to the abduction of IDF officers both in Lebanon and in the Gaza Strip. The savvy and unexpected resistance campaign orchestrated by Hezbollah fighters during the month-long war earned the group global recognition, with the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah hailed a hero across the Muslim world.

While the Israeli government maintained that its heavy-handed response was warranted in the face of an Hezbollah uprising, the Jewish State received staunch criticism for use of unnecessarily brutal force which claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians. For Israel, the 2006 conflict bore scars far deeper than its government may have anticipated as the world watched Hezbollah fighters defiantly take on the 600-pound gorilla.

Today, Israel may have earned itself another reputation – not just as a military power, but one that might be considered particularly merciless.

The images of smoke plumes, destruction and death emanating from Gaza over the past few days are a somber reminder of the country’s 2006 clash with Hezbollah and the great reality that years of neglect are wearing heavily on any hope for Arab-Israeli peace. Israel’s deadly response on Hamas and residents of the Gaza Strip is increasingly looking like an attempt to regain an air of indestructibility, and less like a defense strategy. The embattled government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, still reeling from the ineffective military campaign of 2006, has but a few months left to salvage its reputation, as well as the beset image of Israel.

This point was illustrated in an analysis by Yossi Sarid, published over the weekend in Israel’s Haaretz Newspaper. Sarid wrote: “A million and a half human beings, most of them downcast and desperate refugees, live in the conditions of a giant jail, fertile ground for another round of bloodletting. The fact that Hamas may have gone too far with its rockets is not the justification of the Israeli policy for the past few decades, for which it justly merits an Iraqi shoe to the face.” [http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050451.html]

Gaza has already been shut to the outside world for some 19 months, making it more of an open-air prison for its 1.5 million residents. Now, according to international aid agency Oxfam, most humanitarian work in the territory has been forced to a standstill and a program that would feed 25,000 people had also been put on hold.

The repercussions of Israel’s retaliatory attack on Gaza this week may come back to haunt it if it does not show mercy in the face of a humanitarian disaster. With its message now reverberating across the Gaza Strip, Israel should halt all attacks and give Hamas a hard deadline for compliance.

They say in life, timing is everything. For Israel, the timing could not be more ideal to wage this unforgiving show of strength on Hamas and with it, residents of the Gaza Strip who, in early 2006, may have cast a vote for Hamas. For one, the military campaign came sandwiched in between Christmas and New Year celebrations when much of the Western world is off from work, away from their television sets, and unwilling to acknowledge any bad news that does not directly involve them.

Further, much of the world is now busy piecing together what is left of the global economy and Washington has entered a twilight period where neither the lame duck president nor the president-elect is willing to make any significant statements or policy decisions that may alienate the other. This latest eruption of violence in the Middle East sends President George W. Bush out the door, tail between his legs, with a staunch reminder of his failed promise to revitalize his “Roadmap to Peace” plan before the end of 2008.

President-elect Barack Obama, meanwhile, has a unique opportunity to make history in the Middle East, just as he made history at home. The road to fixing the diplomatic disaster created by the Bush Administration in Iraq runs through Jerusalem. This new outbreak of violence should, if nothing else, move the Arab-Israeli conflict back to the top of the incoming administration’s “things to fix in the Middle East” list. The first step toward winning the hearts and minds of people from Morocco to Pakistan lies in a fair and genuine solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Help Students in Gaza Get a Better education

I received this email today from a contact of mine regarding an initiative by an Israeli nonprofit organization looking to help students in Gaza leave the besieged territory to get a better education.  I think it is really honorable and I hope people can help!

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Greetings,

I write to ask you to join us in helping hundreds of Palestinian students in the Gaza Strip reach their universities abroad. Since June 2007, Gaza’s borders have been closed, trapping 1.5 million people – including hundreds of talented young people accepted to universities abroad but prevented from reaching their studies. Last year, Israel permitted approximately 500 students and dependents to reach their studies abroad via “shuttle” services, but this year, Israel says that students will not be permitted to leave Gaza – except for a few dozen with prestigious scholarships to Western countries.

Hundreds remain trapped, in danger of losing hard-won places at universities all over the world. I refer you to Gisha’s report, “Held Back-Students Trapped in Gaza” (June 2008) and Gisha’s Power Point Presentation, “Students STILL Trapped in Gaza” (July 2008).

 

Today we are launching an online campaign aimed at recruiting international support for the right of Palestinian students from the Gaza Strip to reach their studies abroad. By clicking on the banner above you’ll reach the campaign’s mini-site: www.trappedingaza. org

The campaign is accessible in three languages - English, Arabic and Hebrew - and we hope to communicate it via e-mail, social networks, blogs and other websites.

How can you help?

1.       Join the campaign by logging on to the mini-site and asking Israel’s leaders to let students in Gaza access education;

2.       Spread word of the campaign by forwarding this message to others;

3.       Feature the banner on your website or blog.  You may choose a banner to download at this link.

4.       Click on the mini-site for further action.

Please join us in helping Gaza’s young people exercise their right to freedom of movement and to access education – and to build a better future in the region. 

Best Regards,

Sari Bashi, Executive Director

Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement

Gaza Power Cuts – Email from a friend

The following is an email sent to me by my friend Mohammed Omar, a journalist in Gaza.  Mohammed is also a photographer and he sent me numerous photos, but they are far too disturbing to post.  Believe me when I say that I cannot begin to describe the horror revealed in some of these photos.  Undoubtedly, this conflict has done nothing but punish innocent lives – both Palestinian and Israeli.  It is accomplishing NOTHING.  If the international community continues sitting back, twirling its thumbs and leaving things to get worse, I fear for what is to come.  Desperate people do desperate things.  We mustn’t forget this. – v

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Where to start…, what to talk about…?  The crippling electricity shortages, affecting hospitals as well as civilians?  The air strikes & on-going, daily bombings by the Israeli army, their indiscriminate targeting of civilians and police stations…?   Israel ’s non-accidental, enforced starvation of 1.5 million people by closing off ALL borders and not allowing in even UN aid, let alone basic medicinal, food, and construction needs…? 
 
Shortages of fuel have re-surfaced in Gaza : most of Gaza has no electricity and even more importantly, the shortage of medicine in Palestinian hospitals continues to increase, with the Ministry of Health reporting a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
 
Or should I begin with the bomb which just hit a wedding close to the Ministry of Interior building in Gaza City , with 15 apartment buildings within the bomb’s target range?  One woman was killed and 47 others were injured –mostly children and women who had been inside their homes or playing on the street!!  Scenes of children injured, bleeding and crying just moments after they had been enjoying a wedding celebration in a Gaza wedding hall…a horrific sight likely to go without mention of that in most news sources.
 
The injured were evacuated to Al Shifa hospital, where it was then hard to find enough beds and blankets for them, with children crammed three to four on a bed due to overcrowding. 
 
Earlier Friday, Israel closed its border with the Gaza Strip to all traffic in what officials say is response to cross-border rocket fire, preventing even UN humanitarian supplies from getting in.  The decision came after Israel vowed to broaden its military campaign against Gaza militants who have fired more than 110 home made rockets at southern Israel in the last three days resulting in the injury of two Israelis.
 
In contrast, 19 Palestinians were killed in one day last Wednesday during another Israeli attack, this one targeting the eastern part of Gaza City . 
 
These are the latest attacks, but not the only: since the visit of US president and ‘peacemaker’, George Bush, within only 74 hours, Israel has killed 37 people and injured more than 90.  Those numbers, which could again go up at any minute, were confirmed by Khaled Radi, the Ministry of Health spokesman in Gaza .  Radi also said that Israel is using internationally illegal weapons, which makes it impossible for people to identify the bodies of their relatives as they have been destroyed to unrecognizable ends.
 
Among the tens killed were a 13 year old boy and his father and uncle, killed in what Israel claims was “a mistake”.  Another Israeli attack killed a mother, Maryam Al Rahel, and her son, Mohammed, who were on a donkey cart when an Israeli warplane bombed them.  Their bodies, like so many others, were rendered into small pieces of flesh, scattered everywhere!
 
I and some journalist colleagues went to offer condolences to a journalist friend of ours for the death of his cousin as a result of medicine shortages on Wednesday.  While on the way, there was a lot of shooting going on, from funerals and demonstrations.  Later, as we were starting to drive off from our parking spot, Mohammed, another journalist, suggested waiting for a moment.  But as others preferred to not wait around, we eventually left. 
 
After we had gone just a few minutes down the road, we learned that the place where our car had been parked had just been bombed, targeting and killing two Palestinians, injuring another three.  “It could have been us who were killed,” one of the journalists said to me.  I answered: “Thanks to God, it wasn’t.  But this is so sad; it must be terrible for their families, with children left behind and no one now to support them.” 
 
As predicted, the death toll has risen since I began this report: another two have been killed in northern Gaza , and another 4 badly injured.  Israeli Ministry spokesman, Shlomo Dror says that: “It’s unacceptable that people in Sderot are living in fear every day and people in the Gaza Strip are living life as usual.”
 
And I wonder, what exactly does he consider “life as usual”?  For if he means it is normal that over 35 civilians should be killed in 4 days, an entire population should be on the verge of starvation and should be forced to shiver through winter nights without electricity or sufficient blankets, that hospitals and medical centers should be forced to shut down or operate at sub-par capability and without needed medicine, food, blankets, and even space,…the list goes on…well then yes, we are living life as usual.

FYI: MOHAMMED OMAR POSTS MANY OF HIS ARTICLES AND PHOTOS AT www.rafahtoday.org

Gaza plunged into darkness as Israeli fuel blockade takes effect

JUST AWFUL!

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Monday January 21, 2008
The Guardian 

Parts of Gaza were pitched into darkness last night after its only power plant was shut down following a move by Israel to halt fuel shipments under its new closure of the small, overcrowded strip of land.As fuel supplies ran out, the plant was shut down. Earlier, queues formed on the streets and at petrol stations and warehouses selling cooking gas as the shortages began to take effect. Blackouts have stretched to 12 hours a day in recent weeks.

The closure came after a week of the most intense conflict between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza for more than a year. Nearly 40 Palestinians have been killed in the past week, at least 10 of them civilians.

From Damascus, Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, appealed to Arab leaders and his rival, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to forget their differences and help the Gazans: “All Arab leaders, exercise real pressure to stop this Zionist crime … Take up your role and responsibility. We are not asking you to wage a military war against Israel … but just stand with us in pride and honour.”

Mashaal said he had been in contact with some Arab countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to see if they would pressure Israel. He had asked Egypt to provide fuel for the Gaza plant.

Over the weekend Palestinian militants drastically reduced the number of makeshift rockets they fired into Israel. Israeli officials accused Palestinians of exaggerating the fuel crisis and said the blame lay with the militants.

There was swift condemnation of Israel yesterday from Israeli and western human rights groups and from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Rafik Maliha, the director of the power plant, said the last fuel shipment had arrived on Thursday. The plant was built to provide 140 megawatts of electricity but has never operated at that level. At best, officials at the plant say it could produce 80MW. But early last week, before the closure was imposed, it was down to 45MW, enough to provide less than a fifth of the demand from Gaza’s 1.5 million people. The rest of the electricity is bought from Israel and Egypt.

Israeli officials said the policy was directly linked to the rocket attacks. “If they stop the rockets today, everything would go back to normal,” said Arye Mekel, a foreign ministry spokesman.

Can Hamas be Ignored?

by Vivian Salama

Middle East Times

Middle East author and historian Rashid Khalidi offered the following forecast for Tuesday’s peace gathering in Annapolis, “Cloudy with rain and a chance of storms.” He added, “That’s been the Middle East forecast for decades.”

The media has been criticized for its relentless skepticism of the “get together” – as one White House official described it – taking place in Maryland this week. For many, this multilateral gathering of more than two dozen delegations to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli issue is merely history repeating itself. In 2000, just as President Clinton was preparing to leave office, he invited the then-embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his beleaguered Palestinian counterpart Yasser Arafat together at Camp David to negotiate a final settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Seven years later, a politically besieged President George W. Bush has invited Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas – both of whom are fighting to stay for political survival – to make long overdue concessions and revitalize final status talks. Photo-ops and cliché catch phrases like “Road Map to Peace” will not undo the decades of damage this conflict has inflicted upon both sides. Israel’s Prime Minster Olmert has lost considerable support in Israel following his futile military campaign against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. President Abbas comes to the table representing a government that was not democratically elected by the majority of Palestinians, and so by attending the meeting – all the while further alienating Hamas which essentially rules over Gaza – he may be doing himself more harm than good.

Meanwhile, since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has been preoccupied with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the greater War on Terrorism, all the while neglecting this conflict which continues to be a source, if not a consistent grievance for much of the Middle East and the Muslim world. The War on Terrorism ultimately amounts to a war of ideas. To win the war of ideas, the U.S. must take genuine steps toward solving the Arab-Israeli conflict. That’s where Annapolis comes in.

British-Arab historian Albert Habib Hourani wrote shortly into the Suez Crisis of 1956 that “[He] who rules the Near East rules the world; and he who has interest in the world is bound to concern itself with the Near East.” With just over one year left on the clock, the administration, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has put considerable time and energy in recent months into assuring both sides that it is committed to finding a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. How the Bush administration intends to help foster the creation of a Palestinian state when neither the United States nor Israel recognize Hamas – elected democratically by the Palestinian people in January 2006 – has yet to be determined.

Much of the talk leading up to this meeting has revolved around the idea of concessions. Such a compromise would include full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank with the exception of a few areas amounting to minor border tweaks. Control of the city of Jerusalem would be shared along ethnic lines with commitments from both sides to strive for peaceful coexistence.

A positive aspect to staging the Annapolis gathering at this particular time is that the stakes are high for all the major players involved. The Bush administration, desperate to establish any kind of credibility in the region, knows that the road to fixing the diplomatic disaster created in Iraq runs through Jerusalem. Also, many Israelis, tired of the same old tug-of-war that has dictated the conflict, are pressing for the old “land for peace” notion that has popped up repeatedly in various peace processes involving Israel. Abbas and his Fatah party understand that a failure to achieve a final settlement for the majority of Palestinians will undermine the credibility he is struggling to retain in the face of Hamas. More poignant is that the United States and Israel understand this too.

Ultimately it is not what comes out of the meeting in Annapolis that will be telling, but rather, what is to follow. If the meeting can jump start a series of talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis, then hope is not lost. However, it is unrealistic to think that anything will be accomplished so long as the parties involved continue to isolate Hamas.

Gaza Crisis; Mubarak-Olmert Meeting; Annapolis At Last

This is a rather moving interactive feature by Steven Erlanger, the New York Times correspondent in Israel, on the devastating economic crisis in Gaza.  I recommend it if you have a few minutes:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/11/18/weekinreview/20771118_GAZA_FEATURE.html

I did a story several years ago on the lack of foreign investment in Gaza.  Click here to read it. Also, just as my skepticism took on a new form, the invitations have been sent out and a date set for the Annapolis (Maryland) Palestinian-Israeli summit.  (Alas, I did not receive an invitation – it must be lost in the mail.  To find out who did, click here)  Ehud Olmert was in Egypt with President Hosni Mubarak and the two men (both of whose countries are the first and second highest recipients of US dollars, respectively) gave the thumbs-up to the conference. 

Here’s the story from the New  York Times:

Wanted: Participants for Mideast Talks

By HELENE COOPER and ISABEL KERSHNER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — The Bush administration finally acknowledged publicly on Tuesday that it had issued formal invitations to 40 countries and organizations that it hopes will attend a heavily anticipated Middle East peace conference scheduled for next week in Annapolis, Md. But the long, drawn-out route that State Department officials followed before making the acknowledgment reflected the high-stakes gamble that the administration is taking, as well as the unsettled nature of the outcome. Even late Tuesday afternoon, administration officials were still in negotiations with their Arab counterparts over whether Saudi Arabia and Syria would send their foreign ministers to the conference, or make do with lower-level envoys.

President Bush telephoned King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to enlist his support for the conference, and in particular to try to get an agreement from him that the Saud family would be represented at the conference by Prince Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, administration officials said.

The presence of Prince Saud is seen as critical to assure a certain level of Arab commitment to the peace process. But the Saudi royal family has been unwilling to give the Annapolis conference a high-level endorsement without assurances that the negotiations will be substantive, with real concessions from Israel, including a freeze on settlements that would lead to Israeli withdrawal from land that it seized in 1967.

Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, would say only that Mr. Bush and King Abdullah had “shared their views of the process that is under way between the Israelis, Palestinians and the international community.”

C. David Welch, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, said in a news conference on Tuesday evening that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent an invitation to both Prince Saud and the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem. Mr. Welch said the decision to attend was up to the individual countries, but added, “I’m hopeful and expectant of a positive response.”

An Arab official with knowledge of the negotiations said it was likely that Prince Saud would attend the Annapolis conference. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing diplomatic protocol.

Mr. Welch said “we won’t turn off the microphone” if Mr. Moallem, who rarely interacts with administration officials because of administration policy toward Syria, attends the conference and wishes to speak there. Israeli officials had asked that Syria be invited, and several State Department officials have said privately that it would be a mistake to exclude Syria from the meeting.

If Saudi officials sit down with the Israelis, it will be a rare event at public Israeli-Palestinian talks. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the Saudi ambassador to the United States, attended a peace conference in Madrid in the fall of 1991, but as an observer, not a formal participant.

Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel, although Saudi officials have also urged the Bush administration to push hard to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli peace issue. There have been some unconfirmed reports of other contacts between Israeli and Saudi officials, including some earlier this year.

The conference, which will begin with a preliminary meeting in Washington on Nov. 26 and move to Annapolis on Nov. 27, is supposed to initiate final-status peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians to settle the long-running, seemingly intractable issues that have bedeviled peace negotiators since 1979.

“This is the holy grail of diplomacy,” a senior administration official said. “We’re trying to rally the Arab world for support of this process, and they are master fence-sitters.”

Mr. Bush is expected to begin the Annapolis conference with a substantive speech, and part of the American effort to woo Arab leaders includes assurances to them that he will lay out an ambitious agenda that will pin all sides to firm negotiations on the status of Jerusalem, the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the contours of a Palestinian state.

“This is the point where the rubber meets the road,” said Martin Indyk, the former United States ambassador to Israel. “The United States really wants for Arab states to turn up, to bless the process.”

Until Tuesday evening, State Department officials would not officially confirm even the date of the conference.

“My hope and desire is that we can talk to you, in the not-too-distant future, about not only the list of invitees, but the date as well as the agenda for the Annapolis conference,” Sean D. McCormack, the department spokesman, said at a briefing early in the day, in language that was opaque even by diplomatic standards. “I anticipate there’s going to be a day that all the participants are going to be at Annapolis, and there are probably going to be events the day before and the day after.”

Appearing with the Israeli prime minister in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday gave his full endorsement to the scheduled gathering, and raised hopes among Israeli officials of wider Arab participation at the meeting.

“Obviously we would hope that Egypt’s position will be representative of a larger Arab position,” said Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman.

At a joint news conference at Sharm el Sheik, an Egyptian Red Sea resort, both leaders billed the Annapolis meeting as a springboard for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations toward a final settlement of the conflict.

Israeli officials described Tuesday’s summit meeting as “covering bases” ahead of a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo on Thursday. Israel sees Arab support for the budding Israel-Palestinian peace process as crucial, to give added legitimacy to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and Isabel Kershner from Sharm el Sheik, Egypt.

Israel’s legal adviser halts Gaza power cuts

This entire situation is so sad.  As if it is not enough that the innocent people of Gaza are forced to live in this open-air prison for so long, they have little or no sewage and now the electricity is being cut.  I wrote a story in early 2006 about the failed economy of Gaza – it was hard to believe then that things could get worse.  I always say that and they always do.  There is so much wrong with the situation – and plenty of blame to go around.  What hope is left?  I hope the UN intervenes.

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel’s state prosecutor said Monday that planned punitive cuts in the electricity supply to the Gaza Strip cannot go ahead without taking full account of the possible humanitarian consequences.

Menahem Mazouz said in a statement that “security chiefs must carry out supplementary examinations to take account of the humanitarian obligations before ordering electricity cuts”.

A spokesman for Mazouz’s office, Moshe Cohen, told AFP there was a need to “evaluate the risks that such measures could have on the civilian population”.

Mazouz published his advice following close consultations with officials from the justice, defence and foreign ministries as well as the prime minister’s office and the supreme court.

The supreme court has, meanwhile, given the government until Friday to justify the economic sanctions it is seeking to impose on the Palestinian territory, following legal action taken by 10 human rights groups.

Israel on Sunday began reducing the amount of fuel it supplies to the beleaguered Hamas-run coastal strip, just weeks after it declared the territory a “hostile entity” in response to frequent but rarely lethal rocket attacks.

Amid international criticism of the move as “collective punishment”, it said it intended to impose electricity cuts within the next few days.

Israel rejected international criticism of its decision to cut fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip, after the European Union, the United Nations and Russia condemned the sanctions.

“Israel is continuing to maintain the flow of humanitarian support for the Palestinian people in Gaza – foodstuff, medicine and energy. We do not see the Palestinian people as our enemy,” Mark Regev, a foreign ministry spokesman, told AFP.

“What we are trying to do is find ways to protect our people from these daily attacks of deadly rockets against Israel,” he added. “Our response is proportional and calculated to protect our civilians.”

The decision to cut fuel supplies brought a strong reaction from UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who called the “punitive measures” against the Gaza Strip “unacceptable” and urged the Jewish state to reconsider its actions.

Russia lodged a similar complaint, with the foreign ministry condemning the “isolation” of the Palestinian territory and insisting the measures would do little to combat extremism.

Earlier on Monday a top EU official expressed similar concerns. “I have mentioned these concerns openly in all my discussions,” External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told a news conference following talks with top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem.

“There are indeed real, humanitarian concerns. We do not want the population to suffer,” she said.

1 soldier, 3 Palestinians die in clashes

Three Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed in clashes in the Gaza Strip on Monday, Palestinian officials and the Israeli army said.

Israeli forces operating against areas of Gaza used by Palestinians to launch rockets and mortar bombs across the border came under fire in the northern town of Beit Hanoun and near Khan Younis, a built-up refugee camp in the south.

Hamas, Gaza’s ruling Islamist group, said its fighters fired an anti-tank rocket at Israeli troops at Beit Hanoun, killing one.

The army confirmed the death, describing the soldier as a reservist, and said three soldiers were wounded in the fighting.

“We reaffirm that the enemy will never pass through our areas, except over the dead bodies of their soldiers,” Hamas’ armed wing said in a statement.

Israeli tanks and helicopters shelled Beit Hanoun during the clash, killing a gunman and a civilian, Hamas and hospital officials said. At least 12 other Palestinians were wounded.

Hamas said one of its gunmen was killed while fighting Israeli troops in Khan Younis. The Israeli army said its forces there shot two gunmen but had no word on their condition.

Israel quit Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation but has regularly staged commando raids and air strikes against suspected fighter bases and rocket crews.

The soldier killed on Monday was Israel’s third combat fatality in Gaza this year.

In the occupied West Bank, an Israeli soldier was wounded when his patrol was attacked by Palestinian gunmen, the army said.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small leftist group, claimed responsibility for the ambush. Troops detained three Nablus residents.