Can Saudi Arabia lead the region to lasting peace?

Thomas Friedman asks an interesting question in his New York Times column this morning: "Is Saudi Arabia becoming the new Egypt?"

What he is wondering is whether Saudi Arabia, led by King Abdullah, is replacing Egypt as the traditional leader of the Arab world. Friedman cites the reasons why he asks this question:

In recent months, we’ve seen Saudi Arabia publicly blast Hezbollah for launching an unprovoked war on Israel; we’ve seen King Abdullah forge a cease-fire between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza; we’ve seen him try to tame Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and there are rumors that a top Saudi official met with Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert. That meeting was apparently in preparation for the Arab summit in Riyadh, March 28-29, which King Abdullah will be hosting to revive his February 2002 peace overture to Israel of full normalization of relations in return for full withdrawal from the occupied territories.

By contrast, he writes, "Egypt, for now, seems to be adrift."

Friedman suggests that what King Abdullah needs to do to give the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks an "emotional breakthrough" is "fly from the Riyadh summit to Jerusalem and deliver the offer personally to the Israeli people."

Friedman, with his typical optimism, suggests that this single move "could end this conflict once and for all."

Friedman is encouraging the Saudi king to do at this juncture is make four stops:

His first stop should be to Al Aksa Mosque in East Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. There, he, the custodian of Mecca and Medina, could reaffirm the Muslim claim to Arab East Jerusalem by praying at Al Aksa.

From there, he could travel to Ramallah and address the Palestinian parliament, making clear that the Abdullah initiative aims to give Palestinians the leverage to offer Israel peace with the whole Arab world in return for full withdrawal. And he might add that whatever deal the Palestinians cut with Israel regarding return of refugees or land swaps — so some settlements might stay in the West Bank in return for the Palestinians getting pieces of Israel — the Arab world would support.

From there, King Abdullah could helicopter to Yad Vashem, the memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. A visit there would seal the deal with Israelis and affirm that the Muslim world rejects the Holocaust denialism of Iran. Then he could go to the Israeli parliament and formally deliver his peace initiative.

Friedman thinks that King Abdullah could be the person who can turn Hamas around and make it back away from its stated goal to destroy the state of Israel. As Friedman points out: "It is one thing for Hamas to reject the Oslo peace accords. But how could it reject a peace overture to Israel presented by Saudi Arabia?"

Friedman reminds the reader that it was to him that King Abdullah first unveiled his peace proposal back in 2002. Friedman recalls that day:

As we sat by his desk, he told me he was motivated to propose full peace for full withdrawal to the Israelis because “I wanted to find a way to make clear to the Israeli people that the Arabs don’t reject or despise them. But the Arab people do reject what their leadership is now doing to the Palestinians, which is inhumane and oppressive. And I thought of this as a possible signal to the Israeli people.