MIDDLE EAST: A Saudi initiative for comprehensive peace in the Middle East is infuriating Palestinian officials, and delighting Israelis, with its proposed terms for solving the vexed issue of Palestinian refugees.
The terms suggested by the initiative - which is being championed by Saudi Crown Prince Abdulla and was detailed to the Bush Administration last week before presentation for endorsement at an Arab League Summit in March - underline an apparent wider shift toward moderation by several Arab countries and organisations since the fall of Saddam Hussein's Iraq and his subsequent capture.
Recent weeks, for instance, have seen repeated calls from the Syrian leadership for a resumption of peace talks with Israel, with Damascus on Sunday enthusiastically endorsing a Turkish offer to mediate improved relations.
Libya's declared readiness to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction has reportedly also been followed by secret talks between Libyan and Israeli officials, although Col Gaddafi yesterday bitterly attacked Israel in a newspaper interview, accusing it of state terrorism and of flooding the Arab world with drugs, and complaining about international tolerance of Israel's range of non-conventional weaponry.
Iran, perhaps Israel's most bitter foe, appears to be quietly helping facilitate this week's scheduled Israeli-Hizballah prisoner exchange. Further afield, Pakistan has begun behind-the-scenes contacts with Israel, and President Pervez Musharraf met informally with Israeli opposition leader Shimon Peres in Davos last week.
Even Hamas, committed to Israel's destruction, is professing readiness for a long-term truce with Israel, declaring that it cannot "liberate" all of Palestine "at this stage". While Israel was yesterday dismissive of the Hamas "truce" talk, it is privately delighted by the terms of the Saudi peace plan, a revised version of an initiative endorsed by the Arab League two years ago.
In contrast to the vague provisions on the refugee issue in that 2002 plan, the 2004 version is explicit: it specifies that a new state of Palestine, to be established with Israel's withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders, would be home to two million Palestinian refugees, with all others to be absorbed throughout the Arab world and Israel not required to admit any.
Provided Israel fully withdraws from all territory captured in 1967, including the Golan Heights, the proposal continues, the Arab world would fully normalize its relations with the Jewish state.
Backed by Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab states that have signed peace treaties with Israel, the proposal is strongly opposed by the Palestinian Authority, whose leaders have consistently insisted on a "right of return" to Israel, at least in principle, for all Palestinian refugees of the 1948 and 1967 wars.
Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian academic and PLO official, has been widely condemned by PA officials for championing calls for "limiting" the "right of return" to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in order to secure independent statehood in those areas, with the PA President Yasser Arafat, former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas and current Prime Minister Ahmed Korei all publicly opposing compromise on the issue. The former PA Information Minister, Yasser Abed-Rabbo, was also criticized late last year for signing the Geneva Accords with leftist Israeli politicians, since the "model" peace deal they agreed appeared to give Israel the right to determine how many, if any, Palestinian refugees it would admit.
Palestinian legislator Hatam Abdel Khader, who was involved in the negotiation of the Geneva Accords, said yesterday while Israel was plainly not about to accept a massive refugee influx that would effectively terminate Israel as a Jewish state, Palestinian leaders were not prepared to compromise on the issue.
In any case, any moderation of the long-standing Palestinian demand for a "right of return", he said, would need to be endorsed by the appropriate Palestinian institutions.