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Peace Process

PM grasps at Saudi plan - now wants regional talks


By Stan Goodenough
March 11, 2007

Politically weakened Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert kicked off his weekly cabinet meeting Sunday by telling the ministers Israel should engage in regional talks with the Arab states based on the Saudi Arabian land-for-peace initiative.

Olmert, who today can barely garner the support of three percent of the Israeli electorate, described the Saudi plan, upon which the Quartet's "Road Map" is based, as containing "positive elements."

Israel was now "ready to address [the plan] seriously," he declared.

Ha'aretz reports that while Olmert has previously referred to positive aspects of the Saudi plan, "his position on regional negotiations is new."

The Saudi initiative, which was adopted at an Arab League summit in 2002, calls for Israel to affirm (i.e. to irreversibly admit and commit to):

  1. Full Israeli withdrawal from all the land that the IDF took in self-defensive wars in and after 1967, including the Golan Heights.

  2. Israel's agreement to a solution to the "Palestinian" refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194. This resolution states that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return.

  3. Israel's acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the lands conquered after June 4, 1967 in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In return for Israel's acceptance of these tangible, painful and extremely dangerous concessions, the Arab states will make more promises of peace of the type repeatedly made by Yasser Arafat and the PLO in the 1993 and ensuing Oslo Accords.

They promise to:

  1. "Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region."

  2. "Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace."

Reports on Olmert's openness to discussing these ideas were being spun Sunday in the light of his scheduled meeting later in the day with veteran terrorist leader and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Others saw it as just another shift aimed at shoring up the massive majority support that swept the prime minister into office a year ago, but which has all but evaporated since then.

Olmert is increasingly being criticized for "doing nothing" and frittering away the opportunites his position accords him.

He is also being investigated for fraud and cronyism, on top of which it is widely believed that he is responsible for Israel's defeat at the hands of the Hizb'allah last year.

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