Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa is to call upon the United Nations Security Council to force Israel to immediately end its Gaza blockade. Speaking to the press after an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers which ended in the early hours of Thursday, Moussa said that if the Security Council failed to issue a decision to end the embargo then “the Arab states will have to review steps taken previously”. Moussa said that the foreign ministers had tasked him with informing the United States government of a set of demands related to the embargo on Gaza and associated political activity in the Middle East. “Israel's practices,” Moussa said, “clearly show Tel Aviv's lack of seriousness in achieving a just and comprehensive peace in the region.” Concerning calls for the withdrawal of the Arab Peace Initiative, Moussa said that the document contained a paragraph reflecting remarks from King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, made in his Jan. 2009 speech at the Arab Economic Summit in Kuwait when he said that the Arab Peace Initiative “will not remain on the table for long”. According to Moussa, the Arab League Council has now recommended to Arab League heads of state that the time had come to heed that paragraph. As to relations with Israel, the secretary general said that the ministers were committed to Sirt Summit Resolution 508 canceling all forms of normalization of relations with Israel. “We are going through a delicate and decisive period, and so the Arab side must prepare itself to present the issue in its entirety to the Security Council to take a decisive decision regarding peace in the Middle East,” Moussa said.
