国际英语新闻：No Israeli leader can "swim against stream"

CAIRO, May 9 (Xinhua) -- No Israeli prime minister can swim against the main stream, and the incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu, who is scheduled to visit Egypt Monday, will have to accept the two-state solution in the end, said former Egyptian Ambassador to Israel Mohammed Bassyoni.

    In an interview with Xinhua on Saturday, Bassyoni said he expected the United States to impose strong pressure on Israel to let the latter accept a Palestinian statehood.

    "(U.S. President) Barack Obama suggests and supports the two-state solution," he said. "First, Obama will try to persuade Netanyahu to abide by the two-state solution; if it fails, he will start to impose pressure on him."

    During a visit to Turkey in early April, which aimed at rebuilding the strained ties with the Muslim world, Obama stressed that his administration is determined to help reach a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Israel and a Palestinian state coexisting in peace and security.

    But the overture fell on deaf ears of the right-leaning Israeli government. Obama's special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, who has toured the region in mid-April and collected unanimous endorsement from the Arabs, got little lip service from Netanyahu to the two-state guideline and an vague "new approaches" from the hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

    Netanyahu, who spoke from Israel via satellite to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual conference in Washington, said on Monday night that "We are prepared to resume peace negotiations without any delay, without any preconditions. The sooner, the better."

    The prime minister's fresh approach involves a triple track toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians, namely a political track, a security track and an economic track.

    But Netanyahu, who has been in favor of "economy for peace" since his election campaign, fell short of mentioning the widely accepted two-state idea.

    Netanyahu is due to meet Obama in Washington on May 18, when a bargaining on the solution is expected to top the agenda.

    Though the prime minister has turned his back on the two-state guideline, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon said earlier that Israel would accept a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians that will entail a two-state solution.

    According to the spokeswoman of Israeli embassy in Cairo, Netanyahu will meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday noon in Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

    Israeli government officials said the upcoming trip, the first one for the prime minister since his taking office in late March, is a symbolic move designed to signal the importance Netanyahu places on relations with Cairo and moderates in the Arab world.

    An Israeli official said Netanyahu's Egypt visit comes even before his trip to the United States, showing how important he feels the ties with Egypt are.

    Egyptian-Israeli relations were strained earlier in the year by the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as Israel's foreign minister, whose bold remarks have soured Israeli relations with the Arab country.

    As for the well-planned meeting, Bassyoni said that talks between the two sides would focus on the two-sate solution.

    "They will discuss the peace process and how to achieve it, in addition to exchanging views on the two-state solution," Bassyoni said.

    The former ambassador also said that the Arabs want to achieve comprehensive peace with Israel, ending settlement activities, removing the mass destruction weapons from Middle East region and halting the Israeli attempts to make Jerusalem a Jewish city.

    Arab foreign ministers decided at an emergency meeting held in Cairo Thursday to seek a ruling by the UN's International Court of Justice on Israel's Judaising actions in East Jerusalem, but refused to overhaul the Saudi-proposed Arab Peace Initiative issued at an Arab summit held in Beirut in 2002.

    Despite that, "the Arabs are flexible and they are insisting on the Arab (Peace) Initiative," Bassyoni said.