Qatar, Mauritania freeze Israel ties over Gaza Updated at: 0036 PST, Saturday, Janu

[Introvert]

Qatar, Mauritania freeze Israel ties over Gaza

Updated at: 0036 PST, Saturday, January 17, 2009
Qatar, Mauritania freeze Israel ties over Gaza DOHA/DUBAI: Qatar and Mauritania froze ties with Israel on Friday over its three-week-old offensive on Gaza and a meeting of Arab and Muslim leaders in Doha called for a suspension of the Arab peace initiative with the Jewish state.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said Qatar, the only Gulf Arab state with ties to Israel, would ask the Jewish state to close its trade office in Doha and remove its staff until the situation improved.

In Nouakchott, Mauritania said it had frozen political and economic ties with Israel following the recall of its ambassador for consultations last week in protest at the Gaza offensive, but stopped short of a full severing of diplomatic ties.

The Doha meeting called on Arab countries to review their ties with Israel over the offensive that has killed more than 1,100 Palestinians and to suspend the Arab peace initiative.

The 2002 Arab initiative offered Israel normal relations in return for full withdrawal from all Arab land and a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose country has been engaged in indirect peace talks with Israel, said the Arab peace initiative was "dead" and urged Arab states to end all "direct and indirect" ties with the Jewish state.

"I consider the Arab initiative with Israel "dead", he said.

Khaled Meshaal, Hamas's Damascus-based leader, told the opening session of an emergency conference on Gaza his group would not accept Israeli conditions for a truce and would fight on until the offensive ended.

Qatar, Mauritania freeze Israel ties over Gaza - GEO.tv

 

[Beskar]

Why start Peace talks with a Hostile state in the first place? It only makes them look like Idiots in the end who're delusional to the reality that Israel wants Peace and Stability in the region. Specially since every year or two Israel carries out some sort of a strike deep within the Palestinian land or Lebanon.

 

[Salahadin]

Why start Peace talks with a Hostile state in the first place? It only makes them look like Idiots in the end who're delusional to the reality that Israel wants Peace and Stability in the region. Specially since every year or two Israel carries out some sort of a strike deep within the Palestinian land or Lebanon.

I totally agree with you man

 

[ju87]

Ooh, Mauritania! That is going to change the international scene forever!

Mauritania did have a lot of discontent when the previous dictator decided to recognize Israel as a way of sucking up to the US. Good for them.

 

[ju87]

Why start Peace talks with a Hostile state in the first place? It only makes them look like Idiots in the end who're delusional to the reality that Israel wants Peace and Stability in the region. Specially since every year or two Israel carries out some sort of a strike deep within the Palestinian land or Lebanon.

The sad thing is, none of her neighbours lift a finger to stop it. That either speaks for extraordinary ability on the Israeli side or extraordinary incompetence on the Arab side.