Libya, March 26: Arab foreign ministers on Thursday agreed to raise funds for Jerusalem’s Palestinians, at preparatory talks for a weekend summit.
Their decision will be submitted to Arab leaders for final ratification when they gather on Saturday and Sunday in the Libyan Mediterranean city of Sirte for their annual conference.
“Yes, they have agreed,” Arab League chief Mussa told reporters when asked if the fund had been approved by the ministers.
The Palestinian Authority had asked for 500 million dollars (376 million euros) in Arab aid to help Jerusalem Palestinians cope as they are squeezed out by Israel’s illegal settlement drive.
The weekend summit is set to be dominated by the Middle East peace process.
“We have asked for half a billion dollars,” Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki told said earlier on Thursday.
“It is a modest amount compared to what Israel and the Jewish communities around the world spend on settlements in East Jerusalem and which amounts so far to more than 17.4 billion dollars,” Malki added.
A senior Palestinian official said the money would go towards improving infrastructure in Israeli-occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem, building hospitals, schools, water wells and providing financial support to those whose homes have been demolished by the Israeli occupation.
Palestinian East Jerusalem is considered by the international community to be illegally occupied by Israel.
“We are not asking for too much or for the impossible, or even for an amount of money which our Arab brothers cannot match,” Malki said.
He said the fund was much-needed “support if we really want to bolster the presence of Palestinians in Jerusalem.”
Israeli illegal settlement plans have been condemned worldwide.
The United States and its partners in the Middle East diplomatic Quartet — the European Union, Russia and the United Nations — last week called for Israel to halt all settlement construction and for a peace deal with the Palestinians by 2012.
The Quartet urged Israel “to freeze all settlement activity… to dismantle outposts erected since March 2001 and to refrain from demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem.”
UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who has been invited to the summit, will on Friday meet Arab foreign ministers to brief them on last week’s Quartet meeting in Moscow, Mussa said.
The ministers will also discuss US and international efforts to halt Israeli settlement building and what measures could be taken if these efforts fail, he said.
“We can no longer accept the pursuit of settlement construction,” Mussa said.
Meanwhile, an aide to Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas on Thursday quoted a US official as saying Netanyahu’s visit to the White House did not break an impasse over Israeli settlements and pave the way to peace talks.
Nabil Abu Rudeina said an assistant to US Middle East envoy George Mitchell told Abbas during a meeting in Jordan that Netanyahu’s session with President Barack Obama did not bring progress toward indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks that the US administration is promoting.
“He told Abbas that the meeting between Netanyahu and Obama failed to arrive at an agreement to stop settlement in Jerusalem and the West Bank and to begin indirect talks,” Abu Rudeina said, adding that the official, David Hale, said US efforts would continue.
All Jewish settlements are illegal under international law because they are built on Arab land (mainly Palestinian), illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.
—Agencies