Israel shows new openness to Saudi peace plan
In Jordan, the Israeli prime minister said he was ready to discuss the Arab Peace Initiative with Mideast neighbors
from the May 16, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
At the conference in Jordan, Yasser Abed Rabbo, the secretary general of Fatah, the mainstream faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), suggested that all parties "stop making excuses" about not having an appropriate peace partner.
"We have an historic opportunity, and we can find all kinds of excuses to miss it. We have an Arab Peace Initiative, and it's a unanimous decision to make peace, a long and lasting peace normalizing relations with Israel, if Israel will agree to withdraw from the Arab occupied territories," Mr. Abed Rabbo said.
He added that after many years of inaction, Palestinians see a renewed push toward "exploring the political horizon" – a catchphrase used by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on her last visit to the region – and that this was another way of referring to the final status talks Israelis and Palestinians were meant to complete seven years ago.
The issues in the talks included solving thorny issues such as Palestinian refugees, borders between Israel and the future Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem, and water, to name a few.
While these talks should happen under an international umbrella, core issues must be decided by Israelis and Palestinians alone, Abed Rabbo said, evincing concerns that Palestinian decision-making could be overtaken by Arab countries dominant in the Saudi-authored initiative.
"Anyone who thinks that the Arab initiative can replace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians is dreaming, and it's a bad dream," he said. "The Arabs will not replace the Palestinians ... in making difficult decisions."
Shimon Peres, the vice premier in Olmert's government, lamented that most Palestinians' views do not appear to be in line with those of President Abbas, a moderate with a tenuous hold on authority in the Palestinian territories. "I wish that the policies of Abbas [were] the policies of the Palestinians," Peres said. "Then we [would] have peace in 24 hours."
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