Arabs relaunch peace initiative

Arab heads of state Wednesday unanimously decided to revive a peace initiative with Israel and came a long way since the Khartoum summit, shortly after the 1967 war. At that time, the Arab summit decided there would be "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it."Now they are going to send teams around the world to sell their idea.

Egypt was the first Arab state to make peace with Israel; Jordan followed, and Saudi Arabia's then prince, now King Abdullah floated a peace initiative that the Arab League adopted, with some changes, at a summit meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2002.

The proposal was made at the wrong time - the peak of Palestinian suicide bombings, hours before an attack that killed 29 people who gathered for a Passover eve meal - and prompted a reoccupation of the West Bank.

Now in Riyadh, the Arab leaders have renewed their offer: If Israel withdraws from all the territories it occupied since the 1967 war, agrees to a "just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem" and "accepts the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state ... in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital," then the Arab states would "consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended ... enter a peace agreement with Israel ... and establish normal relations with Israel."

The initiative coincides with a changing atmosphere in the Middle East. Now Iran, a potential nuclear power, is perceived as a greater threat to moderate Arab regimes than Israel. Iran has been using the Israeli-Arab dispute to enhance its influence. It has backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and is arming, training and providing financial aid to the Islamic Hamas.

"More than ever, insofar as Saudi Arabia is concerned, a serious Palestinian-Israeli settlement process is a regional necessity and not a luxury," maintained international relations Professor (Emeritus) Camille Mansour, an adviser to the United Nations.

Egypt, which played a leading role in Arab affairs, has been losing clout. "It has no influence over the emerging challenges and has proven incapable of preventing Palestinian clashes on its very doorstep," Mansour wrote on bitterlemons.org

The offer of peace with all 22 Arab states (except perhaps Libya, which is not attending the summit meeting), the prospect of ending all claims and having "normal relations" with the Arab countries sounds enticing. It was exactly was Israelis have hoped for all along.

Hamas may not like the idea. It still refuses to recognize Israel and renounce violence, but the program of the Palestinian Authority's national unity government does talk of establishing a Palestinian state in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, not beyond them. Hamas has changed considerably in the past year, former Minister Sufian Abu Zaida of Fatah noted in a briefing Tuesday.

It would be much more difficult for Hamas to defy an all-Arab decision to make peace with Israel than to undermine a Fatah attempt to establish relations with the Jewish state. The refugee issue seems to be the main, but not only, problem in the Arab plan.

UPI