By Vestnik Kavkaza
Palestinian militants in Gaza predict the end of the cease-fire with Israel in the nearest future, the official representative of the militant wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, Abu Ahmad told RIA Novosti. “It seems our Israeli enemy is not interested in peace anymore. We have counted more than 20 irregularities of peacemaking in recent weeks by Israel and 1.3 thousand irregularities since last December. We cannot sit back and do nothing in this situation,” Ahmad said. At the same time, the Palestinian authorities have less radical views. A conference similar to Geneva-2 on Syria could be held to discuss the Palestinian problem, the Palestinian ambassador in Russia, Faed Mustafa, thinks. “Russian diplomacy played an important role in settlement of the Iranian problem,” Mustafa says. “We count on the Russian diplomacy and hope that it will present new initiatives on resolution of the Palestinian problem.”
Meanwhile, the head of the Arab League office in the Russian Federation, Jalal Mashta, thinks that “we should discuss Palestine in a wider context. Today there is a world shift from military measures to diplomacy, the so-called ‘soft power’ and talks in settlement of conflicts. The point is in resolution of problems by political and peaceful means to give a priority to negotiating instruments, rather than military measures. The positive tendency, and Russia plays an important role in it, is significant for discussion of the Palestinian problem which is a basis of the Middle East crisis.”
Mashta believes that “the Palestinian problem is one of reasons for all development in the region in general, and the role of the Arab League should be more significant. The Arab League considers the Palestinian problem as a priority, realizing importance of the problem. 13 year ago in Beirut the so-called peacemaking initiative was adopted, and almost the whole world welcomed it. It laid new foundations for settlement of the conflict. Unfortunately, this initiative wasn’t accepted by the Israeli side. The Israeli party prevented the implementation of the initiative.”
