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Forget the Imminent Riyadh Peace 'Breakthrough'
by Anshel Pfeffer
- Whatever the Saudi regime's motives for recycling its five-year-old peace initiative, it surely has few illusions that any Israeli government could accept it without significant modification. There seems little chance of that happening.
- If the Saudis couldn't make Hamas change even its rhetorical position on Israel, what chance is there of the Palestinian leadership supporting the removal from the initiative of the clause calling for the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees?
- And with the refugees still in, the proposal is a non-starter from Israel's point of view.
- The only result for an Israeli government of embracing the Saudi initiative would be that government's certain and swift demise.
- No Zionist party has ever gone as far as the Saudis propose: the refugees' "right of return" is anathema for all except the left-wing of Meretz.
- Neither is a total pullback to the 1967 borders including relinquishing east Jerusalem, something that any of the coalition's parties, including Labor, have ever agreed to. (Jerusalem Post)
How to Make the Saudi Plan Work
by Yossi Alpher
- The Arab League-Saudi peace plan, with its comprehensive regional nature, is increasingly emerging as a possible vehicle for dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict and thereby leveraging regional cooperation against Iran and radical Islam.
- From Israel's standpoint, in order for the plan to be more appealing, Saudi strategists should consider enhancing it in the following ways.
- Firstly, the original plan demands that Israel return to the 1967 borders as a condition for peace. Yet, even the late King Hussein of Jordan and the PLO's Yasser Arafat recognized that territorial swaps and compromises have, over the years, become necessary.
- Secondly, the 2002 plan offers Israel peace, normal relations, and, perhaps most importantly, given present regional conditions, "security for all the states of the region." But what does this mean?
- Thirdly, the plan calls for "a just solution of the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194."
- Yet, that same Beirut AL summit that approved the plan, then went on to pass three successive resolutions reaffirming its demand for the right of return, as if no significant change in Arab positions had just transpired. (Middle East Times)
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Accept the Saudi Initiative
by Gershon Baskin
- Since the initiative has been widely overlooked by Israeli politicians it is certainly worthwhile to point to its primary advantages and reasons why Israel should accept it quickly before it is no longer relevant.
- There is huge significance to the reference to normalized relations. It should be understood that the notion of normalization of relations with Israel has been a steadfast taboo in Arab political culture since 1948.
- For the Arab League to call for normalized relations is no less than a political revolution.
- The initiative also calls for "achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194."
- This is the first time that an Arab document uses the word "agreed" in this context. That would mean that this issue could be negotiated between the parties.
- Now with the Arab peace initiative, the results of such moves would not only bring peace with the Palestinians, Lebanon and Syria, but with the entire Arab world. The peace camp created would extend from Marrakech all the way to Bangladesh. (Jerusalem Post)
Why the Arab Summit Will Not Accept Israel's Demand to Modify the 2002 Peace Plan
by Khaled Abu Toameh
- It's highly unlikely that the Arab summit in Saudi Arabia later this month will accept Israel's demand to "modify" the section in the 2002 Arab peace plan that calls for the right of return for all Palestinian refugees "in accordance with United Nations Resolution 194."
- The reason: The Arab governments want the refugees out - and the sooner the better.
- Almost half of the 4.3 million Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA live in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, where they have long been suffering from severe and inhuman restrictions involving residency rights, freedom of movement and employment, as well as property ownership rights.
- Human rights organizations have repeatedly condemned Lebanon's policy of discrimination, but to no avail.
- In one of its reports, Amnesty described the mistreatment of the refugees in Lebanon as a "legacy of shame." (Jerusalem Post)
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