Olmert sees hope in unbending Arab offer

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Source: Ha'aretz
March 30, 2007

At their summit in Riyadh this week, the Arabs offered Israel an unacceptable "peace" offer and threatened more violence if Jerusalem failed to accept it.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed great optimism over what he called a "revolution" in the outlook of the Arab world toward Israel.

In holiday interviews ahead of Passover, Olmert said that he stand ready to enter into direct dialog with Saudi Arabia and other so-called "moderate" Arab states in the wake of the Riyadh summit and the Arab League's thinly-veiled hostile offer.

The prime minister acknowledged the current Arab proposal contains demands Israel simply cannot accept, but ignored the fact that Arab leaders have very firmly insisted they will not alter the offer.

Like his predecessors, Olmert seems to think that by joining peace talks with its neighbors, Israel will be able to garner international support for its positions.

But such thinking has traditionally led to the opposite - unbearable international pressure for Israel to accept the red-line Arab demands.

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