-Caveat Lector-
At last we see the hand of an architect and or developer on this one for
to build and wall and a trench would put Israel under siege?
OSaba
February 22, 2002
DIPLOMACY
U.S. Is Talking Up Plan From Saudis on Mideast
By TODD S. PURDUM
Join a Moderated Discussion on the Middle East
(Saba Note: Here would be a good list for Kris.....wouldn't he have
fun??? - Sensible Discussion Jews vs Muslims discussion on Middle East)
WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 � Having failed to press Yasir Arafat into
stopping the worst violence in the Middle East in 16 months of guerrilla
war, the Bush administration sees a sliver of light in a peace plan
sketched by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, senior administration
officials said today.
United States officials said that President Bush, under prodding from
European allies to restart peace efforts, would discuss the latest ideas
of Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the de facto Saudi
ruler, with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt when he comes to Washington
at the end of next week.
The officials said they were particularly intrigued by Crown Prince
Abdullah's explicit offer of full normalization of relations with Israel
in exchange for its withdrawal from the territories claimed after the
1967 war. Also encouraging, they said, is the fact that other Arab
states, including Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have
reacted favorably to the Saudi overture.
In a sign of how seriously the Bush administration takes the Saudi
suggestion, William J. Burns, the assistant secretary of state for Near
Eastern affairs, is to discuss it here on Friday with Adel A. al-Jubeir,
a confidant of the crown prince and effectively the Saudi national
security adviser, the officials said.
But the officials also acknowledged that they were at a loss for other
new ideas, and repeated that it was still up to Mr. Arafat to crack down
on Palestinian attacks. The State Department's director of policy
planning, Richard N. Haass, is in the region reviewing policy options,
and met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel today, though he had
no plans to see Mr. Arafat and is not conducting peace talks, officials
said.
Thomas L. Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times, reported last
Sunday that Crown Prince Abdullah had said in an interview that his
country would be prepared to establish full diplomatic relations,
normalize trade and guarantee Israel's security if the Israelis agreed
to withdraw fully from the territories occupied at the end of the June
1967 war.
The crown prince's proposal is similar to one put forward in 1981 by
King Fahd, when he was crown prince, though at that time the Saudis did
not explicitly pledge to recognize Israel. Crown Prince Abdullah has
been Saudi Arabia's de facto leader since King Fahd, his brother,
suffered a stroke in the mid-1990's.
In an Op-Ed essay published in The Times today, Henry Siegman, a senior
fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said senior Saudi officials
had assured him that the crown prince was willing to show even more
flexibility on two issues of longstanding concern to Israel, the status
of Jerusalem, including Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall, and
the occupied West Bank.
American and Saudi officials said that Mr. Siegman's account accurately
reflected the crown prince's views, though they added that details of
any final settlement would be up to the Palestinians.
Still, one American official said: "The Western Wall reference is pretty
dramatic. We went from 0 to 60, and not only was it done by an Arab
state, it was done by the most conservative of Arab states and by the
one guy from whom, when it is said, there is no possibility of taking it
back."
The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said: "These are
significant positive steps and have been endorsed publicly by other
governments in the region, including Egypt. They highlight the
importance of not giving up on the goal of a just and lasting peace, and
the need to do all we can to help end the Israel- Palestinian conflict."
But some other experts on the region expressed less optimism.
"Though intriguing and significant, a Saudi statement promising `full
normalization� in exchange for the demands laid out by Abdullah is
almost surely not relevant in today�s geopolitical context," Robert
Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, writes in a paper issued by the institute.
"Regrettably, it is at least 19 months too late, and probably six to
seven years past the time when it could have made a difference in the
peace diplomacy."
Nonetheless, Mr. Satloff said he hoped that the crown prince would
actually deliver his remarks, which he told Mr. Friedman were contained
in a draft of a speech for an Arab summit meeting next month. The
proposal, Mr. Satloff added, would be sure "to spark even further
inter-Arab debate over whether and how to make peace with Israel."
Speaking to reporters at the State Department, Mr. Boucher had
restrained criticism for Israel, noting that "attacks by Israeli forces
that result in death and injury to civilians, or attacks on the
Palestinian security forces that Israel and we are calling on to take
action against terror, do not contribute to calming the situation or to
improving security for Israelis."
But he reserved his sharpest words for the Palestinian Authority, which
he said "bears a critical responsibility for halting the terror through
immediate and decisive action." He praised the arrest of three people
"involved in the assassination" of the Israeli tourism minister, but
said "more must be done."
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