King Abdullah II of Jordan on Thursday urged intellectuals and opinion leaders in the Palestinian territories and Israel to team up to create "popular momentum" inside Israeli society in support of resuming peace negotiations between the two sides. A royal court statement said that the monarch made the remarks during a meeting at the royal palace with a group of Palestinian intellectuals and leaders of civil society as part of his stepped-up efforts to ensure a breakthrough in the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process, according to dpa. "The king urged Palestinian intellectuals to communicate to their Israeli counterparts the Arab attitude, which is strongly committed to peace with Israel, with a view to creating a popular momentum inside the Israeli society that backs the diplomatic and political moves which seek to spur the peace process at all levels," the statement said. King Abdullah said that negotiations should be based on the so- called Arab Peace Initiative, which was relaunched by Arab leaders at a summit in Riyadh at the end of March. The Arab plan "expresses an Arab commitment to the choice of peace and provides a suitable ground for relaunching a peace process that leads to tangible results," he said. "The only choice available to the peoples of the region is the accomplishment of just peace that leads to an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, the setting up of an independent Palestinian state and at the same time ensuring security for Israel," he added. According to the royal court, one of the proposals forwarded to the king during the meeting was convening a meeting that involves Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals for coming up with "recommendations that urge Israeli and Palestinian leaderships to conduct a serious negotiation process." The king's meeting with opinion leaders of the Palestinian community came in the course of a series of encounters in Amman that has also involved Israeli and US peace activists over the past few weeks. The monarch also met in mid-April in Amman with the leader of the Israeli Knesset, Dalia Itzik, and a number of Israeli legislators to explain to them the Arab peace plan, which envisages all Arab states recognizing Israel after it withdraws from Arab areas occupied in the 1967 war, including East Jerusalem. -- SPA
