Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat exchanged accusatory words during a special meeting on the Middle East at a convention held Saturday in Lisbon by the Socialist International, a global association of labor and socialist parties, reported Haaretz newspaper.
Arafat attacked Israel, pointing to Israeli attacks against Palestinians, the use of tanks and helicopters, and Israel's "policy of assassination." He also accused Israel of destroying the Palestinian economy and humiliating the Palestinian people.
"Our children can't go to school when there are tanks and roadblocks in their paths," Arafat said.
The Palestinian president also accused Israel of violating written agreements by continuing the military occupation and construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
However, Arafat left out a segment in the written text of his speech that accused Israel of using weapons containing depleted uranium.
"Give us security and receive freedom, we don’t want anything except for that," Peres retorted.
"Give us a week without ambulances, without sirens, without a mother's tears. We are praying for the day when there will be no bombs next to discotheques, malls or schools and people can travel roads freely without fear of death," he added.
Peres went on to say that “there was not one single Israeli who understood why the Palestinians had refused the offer made by former prime minister Ehud Barak and former US president Bill Clinton at a summit in Camp David, Maryland last year, which offered the Palestinians almost all of the territories as well as status in Jerusalem, and instead chose to begin the violent nine-month Intifada.”
On Friday, Arafat and Peres and discussed how to end the Middle East conflict, said reports.
Friday's meeting was the first between Arafat and an Israeli cabinet member since February elections that brought rightist Ariel Sharon to power in Israel.
But Peres stressed that a first condition had to be achieved -- seven days without violence in the West Bank and Gaza, said Haaretz newspaper.
"This train will not leave the station without an end to violence," a source close to Peres quoted him as saying.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell brokered a deal on Thursday requiring a seven-day test period of calm, to be followed by a six-week cooling-off period that would put the peace plan into motion.
Arafat told the foreign minister that the Palestinians were trying to halt the unrest, the source said.
However, they needed Israel to help by improving conditions for Palestinians, such as lifting blockades on Palestinian-ruled areas.
Arafat said such moves "would make it easier for them (the Palestinian Authority) to bring an end to violence", the source said.
A spokesman for the Socialist International said their meeting lasted two and a half hours and the atmosphere was cordial, according to Reuters.
A spokesman for Peres, Yoram Dori, said the foreign minister and Arafat had attended a dinner at Guterres' residence, but provided no details. Arafat aides declined to comment.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjorn Jagland, who is the chairman of Socialist International's Middle East committee, also attended the dinner, Dori said - Albawaba.com
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