Saudis patiently push plan

But the risks of calling for peace with Israel are great, analysts say, especially for a nation that, as custodian of Islam's two most holy sites at Mecca and Medina, carries a special weight across the Islamic world.

"It's got to be heady for Abdullah these days," says Gregory Gause, a Saudi Arabia expert at the University of Vermont. "He is the only Arab leader who has any influence at all on President Bush – so it must be tempting for him to play that role.

"But that's a role very foreign to the Saudis, because it puts you out there, in front," Mr. Gause says. "If you are going to be the one Arab leader that can move Bush, Bush is going to expect you to do things in the Arab world that are very un-Saudi, like 'Make Arafat do something,' or 'Bring the Arabs to make gestures toward Israel.' The Saudis have never done that."

Instead, Saudi peace moves have been episodic. The current plan resembles one put forward by King Fahd in the late 1980s. Saudi Arabia also helped broker a Lebanon peace deal.

But stepping into the limelight is a rare and not altogether popular move in the kingdom, analysts say.

"In domestic terms, [Crown Prince] Abdullah may be out on a limb, but he felt it had to be done, and has enough popular support to get away with it," says a European diplomat.

While the extent of its ability to influence Arafat is not yet clear, Saudi Arabia could bestow a key Arab part of the peace puzzle: "Saudi could give Arafat the right to negotiate the future of Jerusalem," the diplomat says.

Saudis across the land have been riveted by the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. They are bombarded daily by television images that show stone-throwing Palestinian youths, lightly armed gunmen, and suicide bombers, battling Israel's modern tanks.

Many Saudis have reacted with their checkbooks. More than $85 million was raised here during a recent government-sponsored telethon to help Palestinians. And charities have sent millions more to help Palestinian "martyrs."

Equating America's heavy military and cash support for Israel with the Israeli occupation, many Saudis are serious about boycotting American products and companies.

Despite popular anger against the US over its backing of Israel, Saudi officials say that US intervention in Mideast peace will be key, and acknowledge that President Bush is the first US president to call for a Palestinian state. "In the Arab world, we understand this as a fact of life, that America stands with Israel," says Prince Saud, in the interview. "But the real point here is whether this relationship is used to advance peace, or if it will be used to hinder peace."

Though heading a nation that uses the Koran as its constitution, Saudi leaders have been accused in the past by hardline Islamists and other critics of being corrupt and illegitimate, and of being too close to the West. The peace effort is one way to consolidate credibility on the Arab street – though not all here support it.

"The growing intifada has done more to threaten this regime than at any time since 1979," when anti-regime radicals took control of the Grand Mosque at Mecca, says the US official. "They are doing what you would expect them to do: plead with the US to put a cap on it." Decisive moves for peace are a turnaround for Saudi Arabia, one of the first nations to sever ties with Egypt in 1979, after its historic peace deal with Israel. Saudi Arabia only restored ties in 1987. Crown Prince Abdullah reportedly refused a request from then-President Bill Clinton to meet Israeli officials.

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