(AFP) — Arab states should boost peace hopes by starting now to normalize with Israel through lifting the embargo and allowing Israeli flights over their countries, leading US Senator John Kerry urged Tuesday.
Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged Arabs to start "treating Israel like a normal country, ending the boycott, letting El Al fly over their countries and meeting Israel leaders."
Speaking to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, Kerry said "lack of support from Arab states" was a key reason that the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks failed in 2000 and degenerated into years of violence.
But he said there is a shift in the region in which Arabs now embrace the idea of land for peace and are also arrayed against a growing threat from Iran.
Kerry welcomed the Arab peace initiative of 2002 for calling for normalizing ties with Israel in exchange for the Jewish state ending the occupation of Arab lands seized in 1967.
But the "Arabs cannot wait for Israel to make all the sacrifices" for improving relations, Kerry said. "They should start doing so right now."
