BEIRUT, March 28--Arab governments unanimously embraced Saudi Arabia's peace offer today, formally expressing willingness to live in peace with Israel in exchange for a Palestinian state and Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and West Bank.
The proposal, including demands for a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees, was largely a reiteration of long-held Arab positions. But it was endorsed by hard-line Arab nations including Iraq and Syria in addition to long-conciliatory U.S. allies Egypt and Jordan, which already have peace treaties with the Jewish state. Because of the unanimity and the regional prestige of Saudi Arabia, it was seen as a landmark in the history of war that has divided Arabs and Jews in the Middle East for more than half a century.
Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, right, a deputy of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, embraces Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah at the Arab summit in Beirut.
(APTN via AP)
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"It is a very clear equation. Frank. Straightforward," Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, told reporters at the Arab League summit conference where the Saudi ideas were endorsed. "The initiative calls on Israel to take certain specific steps, and we pledge to take other steps. . . . If Israel refuses, the peace process will not go on. This is it. We return toward violence. . . . We return toward the threat of widening conflict."
Saud added that the Israeli people should look beyond the "lies" of their own government about Arab enmity and believe the sincerity of what Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto Saudi ruler, first advanced more than a month ago and is now the official stand of the Arab League's 21 member governments and Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization.
Arab officials here said that, realistically, they see little likelihood of reaching a peace agreement with the current Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, but hope the offer helps shape Israeli public opinion over time. As they spoke, Israeli tanks were moving into place for a widely expected attack against Arafat's Palestinian Authority in retaliation for a Palestinian suicide bombing Wednesday night north of Tel Aviv that killed about people.
Arab leaders said they will appoint a follow-up committee to push the initiative along. But they made clear that they expect Israel and the United States to take the next steps in response to their offer.
American officials have welcomed the Arab proposal – if only because it is a new voice for peace in a dispute marked by seemingly unending bloodshed – and it is likely to be a subject of further discussions when Abdullah meets with President Bush in the United States next month.
The reaction in Israel was cautious as Sharon's government met to decide on its response to the suicide attack in Netanya and another attack tonight on a Jewish settlement in the West Bank in which three Israelis were killed.
"We welcome it. We think it is a very important and interesting initiative," said Israeli Foreign Minister spokeswoman Amira Oron. But "after the horrible thing that happened yesterday, it is very hard for us today to speak about peace or peace talks. We hope time will make it easier for us."
Another ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nachshon, described the Saudi initiative as "a non-starter in its current form" because of the reference to a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees, which could be understood as a demand they be allowed to return to the homes they left at the creation of Israel in 1948.
In the weeks since the Saudi initiative was first raised in vague terms, Israeli officials have expressed deep skepticism, and at times outright scorn. They say no Israeli government would be willing to contemplate a complete withdrawal from the West Bank, where more than 200,000 Jewish settlers live, or from all of East Jerusalem, the site of the Western Wall, which undergirds the holiest site in Judaism, the Temple Mount.
The Arab League did not as a group mention Wednesday night's bombing. Saud said Arab leaders "don't condone" the attack. But he hesitated to explicitly condemn it in isolation from the more than 1,000 Palestinian deaths that have occurred during 18 months of the uprising against continued Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Other language in the summit communique endorsed the uprising and pledged $150 million to support it, along with $330 million for Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
The peace proposal was adopted amid a surprising show of unity for the typically fractious Arab League. There was little question that the temper of the world, and particularly of the United States, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington had an influence.
After 12 years of refusing to acknowledge Kuwait's sovereignty and territorial integrity, for instance, Iraq today did just that, pledging not to repeat its 1990 invasion of its much smaller neighbor. In return, the Arab states said that any military action against Iraq would be considered a threat to the entire region's stability. That seemed to be a message intended for U.S. leaders – particularly Vice President Cheney, who recently visited the area – mulling plans to end the rule of President Saddam Hussein.
Symbolizing the mood, Abdullah and Izzat Ibrahim, leader of the Iraqi delegation here, entered the summit's final session dressed in identical bedouin robes and embraced and kissed to a round of applause from others in the conference room.
The significance of the peace initiative itself was hard to judge, particularly given the tense situation at the heart of the conflict: Israel and the Palestinians. As they adjourned their meeting, Arab leaders said they have no illusions of having found an overnight solution to the region's problems.
Faisal said that it remains up to the "interested parties," primarily Israel, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians, to reach specific agreements on issues like shared control over Jerusalem, the fate of several hundred thousand Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and determination of disputed international borders. Those issues have been discussed intensely for years without solution, and there was no suggestion among the Arab officials here that the Saudi initiative is a prelude to major compromises.
"Land is composed of one component. There is not half a land, or a quarter of a land. It has to be complete," said Syrian President Bashar Assad, who hopes to regain the Golan Heights seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War.
However, some key phrases seemed to offer room for discussion. Instead of the traditional "right of return" for refugees, a concept Israel opposes as a threat to its Jewish identity, the initiative spoke of a negotiated "just solution." That left open the possibility that refugees could be repatriated to a future Palestinian state outside Israel, receive financial compensation or move to third countries rather than seek to recover land in Israel.
It also explicitly mentioned East Jerusalem as the future capital of Palestine, acknowledging the city's Jewish neighborhoods would remain Jewish control.
Most significantly, Faisal said, the proposal should convince the Israeli public that the Arab world is serious about ending the state of war that has existed since 1948. He said that with no end in sight to 18 months of violence, Saudi leaders felt compelled to make the offer, if only to give the Palestinians a way out of further fighting.
"Nobody is coming to the help of the Palestinians. Our people haven't done anything. Volunteers have not gone there," the Saudi minister said. "At the very least today we have a weapon to influence the world opinion, and opinion inside Israel."
Correspondent Lee Hockstader in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
