Moussa: Genoa summit has to rein in Israeli policies

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa spotlighted the importance of raising the current Mideast situation at the summit meeting of the G-8 leaders now in session in Genoa, Italy.

Briefing reporters on Friday, Moussa said that the G-8 leaders have a responsibility towards taking the necessary steps to rein in Israel's irresponsible policies which, he said, are threatening peace in the Middle East, along with the very interests of the major eight industrialized nations in the region.

"Failure to come up with clear resolutions on the overall conditions in the region, especially with regard to sending international observers, would be considered as tantamount to giving an additional green light to Israel to go on with its dangerous policies," Moussa pointed out.

"The G-8 summit has received two messages in this respect from Jordanian King Abdullah, the current president of the Arab Summit, and Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat," Moussa said.

Asked whether President Hosni Mubarak's recent statements, in which he ruled out the possibility of reaching an Arab-Israeli peace while Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon remained in power, could be seen as a message to the G-8, Moussa believed they were.

The G-8 leaders know that President Mubarak, with all his keenness on realizing peace in the Middle East, would not have expressed such a view had he not been quite aware of the seriousness of the current situation in the region and the negative impact of Sharon's policies.

Moussa reiterated that failing, on the part of the Genoa Summit, to curb the decimating Israeli war machine would push Arab peoples to press for more stringent stances towards Israel.