These are are excerpts of editorials from newspapers from around the world that may be of interest to Royal Gazette <$>readers:

The Jordan Times on Arafat:

The Israeli President, Moshe Katsav, has acknowledged that the Middle East is living through critical times, which require that the Palestinians and Israelis seek a real peace agreement. His assessment, though a belated recognition of the obvious, is correct.

Where the Israeli president went wrong, however, was when he turned to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in his urging of a commitment against violence.

Katsav must address his call to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He is the one escalating the violence. He is the one who threatened to ‘hit the Palestinians very hard,’ as if his occupation troops has not already wreaked enough havoc on them.

The Arabs and not just Arafat, seek real peace with Israel. This strategic commitment to a comprehensive and lasting peace was reiterated by the peace initiative of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

This initiative will be presented to the Arab summit in Beirut by the end of the month. The summit could adopt the proposal as a peace offer by the Arab League.

It will be impossible for the Saudi crown prince to officially present his proposal if Arafat is not present at the summit. Unless Israel withdraws its tanks and allows the Palestinian leader to travel to Beirut for the summit, it will be impossible for the peace plan to be discussed, let alone be adopted.

The Independent, London, on the Commonwealth and Zimbabwe:<$>

Over the past two years, as the political situation in Zimbabwe has gone from bad to disastrous, the Commonwealth has dithered on the sidelines, issuing ever-fiercer warnings about the consequences of flouting democracy. In all that time, it has done absolutely nothing.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) that closed in Australia last week followed in that same dishonourable tradition. CHOGM, the one body with the undisputed authority to suspend members, a body that meets only once every two years, flunked its chance to show that the Commonwealth has a modicum of principle.

Not all the reasons for inaction were ignoble. Opponents of suspension expressed the view — as they have at each ministerial meeting since the summer — that engagement was better than abandonment.

With less than one week remaining before the elections, the desire of the Commonwealth majority to exploit every last ounce of leverage is understandable. In failing to act yet again, however, the Commonwealth displayed its spinelessness for all to see. Worse, it split precisely along racial lines, exposing once again the lingering resentment between the less developed and developed world.

Maariv, Tel Aviv, Israel, on Palestinian terror attacks:<$>

‘Everything that moves in the state of Israel is a target for an attack,’ said yesterday the police commander of the valleys region, Dov Letzki, in light of the attack in the city of Afula. This was a most precise definition of the reality of our bloody lives in which attack follows attack and funeral follows funeral.

No government — including a national unity government — can accept the situation of endless killing of civilians. No government — whose most important task is the protection of its citizens — can deal with an endless string of security meetings while Palestinian terror groups try to destroy the public order with indiscriminate murder.