Are we getting any closer to Middle East Peace?

Israel-based blogger M.J. Rosenberg discusses The Saudi Plan at TPM Cafe.

First his summary of what the plan offers:

In exchange for Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories, the entire Arab world would establish normalized relations with Israel. This is a far better deal than the original "land for peace" idea because it establishes peace not only with the Palestinians but with every single Arab country. And not just peace either, but fully normalized relations.

So what does this really mean? As Rosenberg writes:

Israeli and Palestinians negotiate a deal based on United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338, the Roadmap, etc., and, as soon as the two sides reach agreement, Israeli will be granted recognition and normalization by the entire Arab world.

Since the Israelis and the Palestinians have to forge the first agreement in the peace plan, Rosenberg suggests that the parties begin as soon as possible - they don't need Saudi involvement to start this process.

Rosenberg says Israel also doesn't have to hammer out the details with Hamas present (which is fortunate as it is still calling for the destruction of Israel) because under the Mecca Agreement (also brokered by the Saudis), Hamas agreed to allow President Abbas to be the representative of the Palestinians.

While Rosenberg acknowledges that there are plenty of, as he says, "skeptics [who] insist that the plan is a take-it-or-leave-it offer," in his view, "the Arabs intend there be negotiations over the plan and that it is not some kind of diktat."

To make his case he cites the argument put forth by a former Shin Bet expert on the Palestinians, Mati Steinberg. As he writes:

It is hard for Steinberg to understand how serious people can argue that anyone is expecting Israel to withdraw from the territories without conducting detailed negotiations on borders, security arrangements, the holy sites and so on. According to him, the absence of a demand to evacuate the Jewish settlements in the territories, for example, is not by chance. It is clear to the Arabs that the way to an agreement passes through the negotiating table.

Then he quotes no less an authority than King Abdullah of Jordan seems:

That is precisely what King Abdullah of Jordan told IPF at a meeting at his Amman palace this week. He told us that arguing about the details of the plan is pointless because, essentially, there are no details. The plan is simply a framework, every aspect of it is negotiable. The point, he said, is to get to serious negotiations.

You should read the article to see what he says about the sticky right to return issue, but I'll post his conclusion here:

Any agreement Israel reaches with the Palestinians (or any other Arabs) will be just that: an agreement mutually agreed upon. Claiming to object to negotiations because they might produce an unacceptable result is a bogeyman. It takes two signatures to make an agreement and one of them will have to be Israel's.

Those who oppose any agreement between Israelis and Palestinians should just say so. These tired excuses have become utterly transparent.

Promises, promises...Now is the time for all good men...

The Jerusalem Post reports that despite Saudi promises to end its boycott of Israeli-made products, Saudi Arabia has yet to fulfill its pledge - and one of the conditions of its being granted membership to the World Trade Organization in 2005.
As the Post notes:

The WTO, which aims to promote free trade, prohibits members from engaging in discriminatory practices such as boycotts or embargoes.

..."Goods made in Israel are not allowed here in Saudi Arabia," Khaled A-Sharif, assistant manager of the Saudi Customs Department at King Abdul Aziz Airport outside Jidda, told the Post by phone. "Of course it is not permitted," he said.

Given that Saudi Arabia is trying to lead a Middle East peace process whereby in exchange for concessions from Israel, the 22 Arab nations promise to normalize relations with the Jewish state, it would seem that Saudi Arabia should be eager to demonstrate its good faith by carrying out promises that it has already made, would it not?

Saudi Arabia: Friend or foe?

Uploaded on February 11, 2007by Fares Najd

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Pulitizer Prize winning journalist, Karen Elliott House, sums up the confusing signals coming from Saudi Arabia:

The regime talks about Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Israel having common strategic interests in the Middle East, including containing extremist forces in the region and blocking Iranian domination. But as yet they haven't stepped up to join Egypt and Jordan in recognizing Israel. For all the concern about U.S. failure in Iraq, the oil rich kingdom isn't helping U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for a war whose outcome is at least as important to Saudi Arabia as the U.S. For all the fears about Iranian domination of the region, the Saudi response beyond multiple levels of dialogue, is to hope that the U.S. solves the problem.

Yet, as imperfect an ally as Saudi Arabia may be, as House goes on to observe:

In a part of the world where America has few friends and many enemies, King Abdullah is a last best hope for the U.S. as well as the Saudis. What will follow him, regardless of whether there is an orderly succession, almost certainly will be less to America's liking.

The Riyadh declaration: Does this present a historic opportunity?

The leaders of the Arab nations concluded their two-day summit in Riyadh by issuing a declaration that according to the Reuters' report, "endorses an Arab peace initiative launched in 2002 but makes no direct mention of key issues such as the fate of Palestinian refugees."

According to Reuters, these were the key excerpts of the statement:

- (The summit) "affirms a just and comprehensive peace as a strategic option for the Arab nation and the Arab peace initiative that draws the right path for reaching a peaceful settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict based on the principles and resolutions of international legitimacy and the land for peace formula."

- (The summit) "stresses the importance of freeing the region from weapons of mass destruction without double standards, warning against starting a dangerous and destructive nuclear arms race in the region and emphasising the right of all countries to peaceful nuclear power."

- (The summit) "decides to spread the culture of moderation, tolerance, dialogue and openness, to reject all forms of terrorism and extremism as well as all exclusionary, racist trends, campaigns of hatred and endeavours to question our humanistic values or defame our religious beliefs and holy places, and to warn against growing sectarianism for political purposes that aims to divide our nation and ignite destructive sedition and civil strife."

I haven't seen the official Israeli response yet to this declaration but political consultant Zalman Shapira had this to say in an editorial piece in the Israeli daily Haaretz:

For the first time in the history of the conflict, not only Egypt and Jordan but the entire Arab League is proposing peace, but Israel is turning its back.

Has something changed in the Arab world? Have the Arabs really changed?

His conclusion? "It is not the Arabs who have changed, but the circumstances." As Shapira writes:
A new enemy is confronting the Arab elite, even more frightening and dangerous than Israel. Radical Islam threatens not only the public survival of the elite, but its physical survival as well. Ostensibly the military-civil establishment is still in control, with the support of the intellectual elite, but the masses are already captivated by radical Islam...

Every society needs an ethos to survive properly. With the help of the ethos the elite maintains its control over society...The ethos of Islam is coming back into power. When the ethos changes, so do the elites. At the end of the era of Mubarak, Assad and the other secular rulers, the victory of Islam will be unavoidable, either through elections or through a popular Iran-style revolution.

That is the reason for the Arab elite's desperate cry for peace. It is also the reason for the Saudi initiative and for the willingness of the Arab League for a normalization with Israel. The Arab elite is convinced... that Israel Defense Forces activities in the territories are causing unrest among the masses. Arab satellite television, which broadcasts from every corner of the territories, is bringing the victims of the intifada into every home in the Arab world. This unrest is fertile ground for the growth of radical Islam.

Shapira argues that:

[Israel] cannot stop the domination of Islam, but it must prepare for its advent. Israel's national interest requires determining the borders of the country and getting them recognized by the Muslim world before the Islamic storm floods the region. Only legitimate borders will constitute an impenetrable obstacle to radical Islam.

He goes on to suggest that Israel's only hope to negotiate such borders now lies with the Arab League because:

Israel's only partner, the representative of Palestinian nationalism, Fatah, is out of power. Hamas, which represents radical Islam, is not a partner for setting the final borders due to its refusal to recognize Israel.

Shapira suggests that because the Arabs face a new reality themselves, namely the ascendance of revolutionary Islam, they are now themselves eager for the first time in history to work out a peace plan:

The Arab countries will help to reach diplomatic arrangements and to make peace in the Middle East because the Arab elite believes an end to the conflict will contribute to stopping radical Islam and checking Iranian influence in the region.

In all Israel's 59 years there has not been such a favorable diplomatic atmosphere for ending the conflict. This is a final historic opportunity before the Islamic storm sweeps away the last vestiges of moderation in the Middle East.