The Saudi “Peace Initiative” – The Next Strategic Failure
Third and Final Part

· To agree to the establishment of a sovereign, independent Palestinian State in Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, whose capital is East Jerusalem.

3. Accordingly, the Arab countries ratify the following:
· As far as the Arab countries are concerned, this is the end of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the beginning of a peace agreement with Israel. The countries will see to the well-being of all of the countries in the region.
· The Arab countries will normalize relations with Israel in the context of a comprehensive peace.

4. The Arab countries reject any form of Palestinian sovereignty inconsistent with the special circumstances delineated by the host Arab countries.

5. The Arab countries call upon the Israeli Government and all residents of Israel to accept this initiative in order to preserve the chance to achieve peace, to put an end to the continued bloodshed and to enable the Arab countries and Israel to live in peace and as good neighbors and to provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity.

6. The Arab countries invite the international community and all countries and organizations to support this initiative.

7. The Arab countries request that the chairman of the summit establish a special committee, which will include representatives of all of the interested parties as well as the secretary-General of the Arab League, which will act to garner support for this initiative at all levels, especially at the United Nations, the Security Council, in the United States, Russia, the Moslem countries and the European Union.
*
This is the text of the document. The text of the Saudi initiative was first publicized in February 2002 in the wake of a column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, in which the journalist described the interview that he conducted a short time earlier with the Saudi Crown Prince, Prince Abdullah. A month later, the initiative was adopted at the Arab League summit in Beirut. After a long, stormy debate, which more than once was on the brink of a breakdown, the initiative was unanimously adopted by the 22 League members and became the “Arab Peace Initiative”.

Publication of the initiative was ignored both by the Israeli Government, which considered the initiative as nothing more than a Saudi exercise in public relations in the wake of its decisive role in world Islamic terrorism in general and in the terrorist act at the Twin Towers in particular as well as by the United states and the European Community, which were busy with the Iraq war at the time. Thus, the initiative sunk into oblivion for a period of approximately three years and was resurrected in 2006 and is enjoying increased acceleration this year. It is possible to enumerate several reasons for this, first and foremost among them the dramatic shift in Israel’s strategic condition that took place during that period.

If the Arab initiative began with a whimper in 2002 and, as mentioned above, did not attract any attention at the time, now it has become the central impetus in Middle East diplomatic activity. Thus, it is only natural that the Saudi Foreign Minister is presenting his plan as an ultimatum accompanied by an (unveiled) threat: “If Israel does not accept the Saudi peace initiative, it will abandon its fate to the hands of gang and militia leaders”. The Saudi Foreign Minister concludes and establishes: “If Israel wants peace it must accept the Saudi initiative in its entirety, as a complete package”2

Surprisingly, it was King Abdullah of Jordan, who in the past adamantly asserted that there is no chance to demand from Israel resolution of the refugee problem in accordance with UN Resolution 194, who warmly joined the initiative and called upon Israel in late March 2007, during his meeting with the American Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, “to respond affirmatively to the Arab peace plan”.

At this stage, the Arabs set out on a campaign to convince all of the elements that wield clout and influence in the Middle East. First and foremost in Washington, that is currently assessing ways to implement the Arab initiative and how to integrate it into the “Road Map”. The European Community greeted the Saudi discovery as a wonderful opportunity and Javier Solana of Spain enthusiastically began recruiting supporters for the initiative. Vladimir Putin repeatedly expressed his support for it. However all this is only an appetizer for the main course, that is the willingness of the victim to swallow the bait. The “peace camp” has begun banging the drums, opinion polls indicate broad public support and the political echelon has absorbed the message. The Foreign Minister of the Jewish state, Mrs. Tzipi Livni, who is seeking to make her way to the Prime Minister’s Office in the spirit of the hard and fast rule that “since Menachem Begin, each succeeding Prime Minister in Israel has been worse than his predecessor”, saw fit to inform Mrs. Rice of Israel’s willingness: “To offer our hand to the peace that is being extended to us”. However it was the PM himself, who, as is his wont, exposed the depths of the moral turpitude to which a member of the Betar movement could descend. He said: “In a meeting with the Saudi Foreign Minister, the prince will be surprised just how far we are willing to go...” Several days later he added that “Israel will join the Saudi initiative with no preconditions”.3 (Indeed, the prince will be surprised, no doubt about it, as one of the generators of Saudi terrorism around the world, the prince serves as a facilitator of the most evil and murderous of all the Islamic sects, Wahabism, but even he would not sell his homeland for a pottage of lentils designed to save him from police investigations of his shady business transactions as a corrupt real estate merchant).

Thus, today as in the past, it is not the substance and the essence of the matter that determines the crooked path of the common functionary who made his way (arrogantly, as a rule) to the top of the Israeli political pyramid, but rather the word written on ice: peace.

Endnotes
1
See the article on the matter by Dany Shoham, “An Antithesis to the Matter of Iraq’s Chemical and Biological Weapons”, Nativ, vol. no. 111-112, pp. 4-5, September, 2006.
2
The Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, in a March 28, 2007 interview with the British Daily Telegraph. The British reporter, not a particularly outstanding Zionist, noticed the Arab trap and entitled his article: “Accept Peace Plan or Face War, Israel Told”.
3
According to a report in Haaretz, April 19, 2007.