KHARTOUM, March 28, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As Israelis voted to elect a parliament that could give the new government a mandate to impose permanent borders with the Palestinians, Arab leaders meeting in Sudan on Tuesday, March 28, reaffirmed peace commitment and renewed a land-for-peace offer to Israel.

"I call on the ... Quartet (of international mediators) to double its efforts so that Israel responds to repeated Arab calls for peace, especially the Beirut resolutions," said host Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, reported Reuters.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and King Mohammed of Morocco, in a speech read by his prime minister, urged the Quartet, which groups the US, the EU, Russia and the UN, to help revive Middle East peace talks.

At the 2002 Beirut summit, all Arab states offered Israel peace in return for withdrawal from Arab lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.

Israel rejects the offer as unrealistic and interim prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has campaigned in elections on a plan to set Israel's borders by 2010 by retaining big Jewish settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank, while dismantling smaller ones.

Abbas asked for more financial aid "to reinforce the steadfastness of our people." (Reuters)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked for more financial aid "to reinforce the steadfastness of our people."

The Arab leaders also urged the international community not to punish the Palestinians for democratically voting Hamas into power.

"All calls to distort the political meaning of the Palestinian choice by threatening to boycott it and cut aid cannot be justified," Bouteflika told the gathering.

"This can only be seen as an unfair punishment to a whole people on a choice they made freely," he added, referring to the stunning win of the resistance movement Hamas in January's legislative election.

Beshir also condemned "punishing the Palestinian people for practicing their right to choose who rules them."

A draft resolution agreed to during a two-day meeting of Arab foreign ministers ahead of Tuesday's summit demanded the international community not suspend funding to the Palestinian Authority and to "respect the democratic choice of the Palestinian people."

The EU and the United States have threatened to sever all aid to the Palestinian Authority once Hamas, which they both list as a terrorist organization, takes power.

The 24-member Hamas-led government on Tuesday the overwhelming backing of Palestinian lawmakers after a long and fiery debate on the government's political platform presented by Prime Minister Ismail Haniya.

The Arab leaders also rallied behind Sudan in its refusal to replace African Union peacekeepers with UN ones in the troubled region of Darfur.

"The African Union forces are capable of accomplishing their mission in Darfur without any foreign intervention," Beshir told the summit.

He called on "Arab countries and the international community to support financially the AU forces," which are cash strapped and undermanned.

Arab League officials say the pan-Arab body has already given about $200,000 to the AU mission in Darfur and another $50,000 to the Abuja peace process, a minor amount considering the AU mission needs $17 million a month.

"They are unlikely to get a significant amount of money," one Arab diplomat, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

The UN Security Council voted on Friday, March 25, to speed up plans to deploy peacekeepers to replace the African Union mission in Darfur.

An Arab League official told AFP only Egypt and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa are backing full implementation of the UN Security Council resolution on Darfur, while other members are lining up behind Sudan.

A number of key regional heavyweights, including President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdel Aziz, missed the annual summit, which was cut down to one day instead of two.

Only twelve Arab heads of state, from 22 Arab League members, attended the opening session -- a disappointing turnout for the Sudanese hosts.

Jordan's King Abdullah II became the latest Arab leader to announce he will be skipping the summit in Sudan.

Also absent are Bahrain's King Hamad bin Issa Al-Khalifa, United Arab Emirates President Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahayan, Morocco's King Mohammed VI, Sultan Qaboos of Oman, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and his Tunisian counterpart Zine El-Abidine bin Ali.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora shook hands on the summit sidelines despite simmering tensions between the two neighbors.

Siniora, who is attending the summit despite the presence of President Emile Lahoud, told Assad hat he wished to visit Damascus, a member of Siniora's delegation said.