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Friday, May 19, 2006
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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U.S.: Saudis not boycotting Israel
The United States sought and received assurances from Saudi Arabia that it’s not observing the Arab boycott of Israel.
The United States and Israel agreed to Saudi Arabia’s accession to the World Trade Organization last year once the Saudis agreed to WTO rules against boycotting other member nations. Since then, the Saudis reportedly have participated and hosted boycott meetings. Susan Schwab, President Bush’s nominee to be U.S. Trade Representative, told the U.S. Senate in confirmation hearings Tuesday that the trade office had checked the reports and found them inaccurate.
Separately, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday and assured her that the Saudis had removed anti-Christian and anti-Jewish references from school textbooks.
State: Egypt deserves aid
Egypt deserves to maintain current levels of U.S. aid because of the role it plays in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the U.S. State Department said.
The U.S. Senate recently cut $47 million in economic assistance to the Egyptians and the U.S. House of Representatives’ Middle East subcommittee considered further cuts this week, because of rollbacks in Egyptian democratization programs. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said such moves were counterproductive.
“We believe at this point that the current aid levels, as well as the areas in which that money is spent, are appropriate,” he said Thursday. “The Egyptian government has been deeply involved in trying to move the peace process forward over the course of many, many years, and that includes over recent years. They have played a very positive role, for example, most recently, in the Gaza disengagement process.”
Egypt gets $1.3 billion a year in military assistance and $500 million in economic assistance.
http://www.jta.org/
posted by Somebody @ 11:25 PM Permanent Link
 
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