President to relay Palestinian message to Israel
Maryam Omidi - Minivan News (Maldives) 3 October 2009
www.minivannews.com/news_detail.php?id=7385

President Mohamed Nasheed will pass on a message from the Palestinian
president to the Israeli prime minister about the Palestinian government's
hopes of reviving dialogue with Israel.

In a telephone call with Nasheed last week, Mahmoud Abbas told the president
that the Palestinian government wished to resume the talks started during
former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's administration.

Abbas further requested Nasheed discuss the Israeli settlement of
Palestinian territories with the incumbent Israeli prime minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu.

In the telephone call, Nasheed said, "I have always, all throughout my life,
been a very strong Palestinian supporter and there is nothing more that we
would like to see other than a free and safe state of Palestine."

President Nasheed invited the Palestinian president to visit the Maldives
and accepted an invitation to visit the Palestinian territory.

The phone call came ahead of a call to Netanyahu following the government's
decision to renew diplomatic ties with Israel.

Addressing members at the 64th session of the United Nations General
Assembly, Nasheed said the Maldives would make use of diplomatic ties to
assert its support for an "independent and sovereign" Palestinian homeland.

"We believe dialogue and constructive engagement serve the cause of peace
better than ostracism and isolation," he said.

At the sidelines of the Assembly, the Maldives signed three Memorandums of
Understanding with Israel to collaborate in health, education and tourism.

In an email to Minivan News, David Goldfarb, an official from the Israeli
ministry of foreign affairs, said Israel was pleased to have diplomatic
relations.

"Israel has no quarrel with the Muslim world and seeks to establish dialogue
and relations with all Muslim countries," wrote Goldfarb, adding that
historically, Muslims and Jews had lived together in peace in the Middle
East.

"The conflict in the Middle East is a territorial and political conflict and
not a religious one. The extremists who distort Islam and use religion to
justify violence wish to present the conflict as a religious one, in order
to make it impossible to solve," he wrote.

On the proposed collaboration between the two countries, Goldfarb said
Israel would be able to offer assistance in fields such as science,
technology, agriculture and bio-medicine. Since 1958, he added, Israel had
shared its technological know-how with many countries in the developing
world.

"Israel is keen on promoting these projects together with the Maldivian
government and believes that the people of the Maldives can gain a lot from
them," he wrote.

In addition, Goldfarb said Israelis loved to travel and he believed renewed
diplomatic ties would significantly increase the number of tourists
travelling to the Maldives.

The decision to renew ties with Israel has piqued discontent in some
quarters. Last week, MPs from the main opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party
and the leader of the Islamic Democratic Party protested outside the
president's office, denouncing the decision to restore ties.

The religious conservative Adhaalath Party, a member of the coalition
government, further called on the president to scrap plans to renew ties
until Israel accepted democracy, honoured UN resolutions and ceased its
aggression against Palestine.

"Israel has forced the Palestinian people out of their homeland and robbed
them of their possessions," the party wrote in a press release.

But both Nasheed and Foreign Minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed have reiterated that
diplomatic ties was not an endorsement of Israeli actions and the
relationship would allow the Maldives to apply political pressure over
Palestine.

"They have to give back the Palestinian lands, they have to give back Golan
Heights," said Shaheed in a press conference. "We are not approving their
atrocities by any means."

In his email to Minivan News, Goldfarb wrote: "Diplomatic relations are the
most common and efficient channel of dialogue between any two countries,
even when there are disagreements between them. We believe that diplomatic
relations between Israel and the Maldives will lead to the benefit and
advancement of both countries."