semitism.net

The Los Angeles Times has some interesting articles on the summit meeting of Arab leaders in Riadh, and the prospect of a new (well, re-warmed) Israel-Palestinian peace plan. The lead report:

the festering conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, viewed by many as the wellspring for the region’s rising Islamic radicalism, took center stage at the summit. Abdullah, in a forceful speech, condemned the U.S.-backed aid boycott of the Palestinian Authority government led by Hamas militants who don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist.

“In wounded Palestine, the resistant (Palestinian) people are still suffering from oppression and occupation, deprived of their right to independence and to have a country,” the Saudi king told the arriving diplomats.

Saudis want to revive their 2002 peace plan in which they proposed granting Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for a host of concessions, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces from land occupied after the 1967 Middle East War and a “just solution” for Palestinians who fled their homes after Israel’s founding in 1948.

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians are staking out their bargaining positions, with Israel calling for a modified proposal that drops the right of return and the Palestinians insisting on no alterations. Still, Israel is not rejecting the plan out of hand, as it did the first time around:

Israel, which shunned the proposal in the past, has warmed to it in recent months under U.S. pressure. The nation called on the Arab League to revise the document and praised Saudi attempts at generating a dialogue.

“We see it as a positive — the fact that the Arab community wants to talk with Israel after years of isolation. It’s a positive change,” said Yariv Ovadia, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s deputy spokesman.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the initiative is going anywhere. The Saudis are in a strong position to push the proposal. Abdullah seems to have consolidated his leadership of the Arab League at the summit. The Saudis brokered the Mecca agreement that created the Palestinian unity government, and I believe they’re the main financial backer keeping it afloat, so they have influence (if not control) there.

On the other hand, just as with the Clinton-Barak proposal, this process comes at a time when the Israeli leadership is weak. It’s not clear how long Olmert’s government will last, and whether he has the clout to lead the country into meaningful peace negotiations.

Similarly, U.S. leadership is compromised by a beleaguered President with no political capital, and a Democratic congress that is in the pocket of the hard-line pro-Israel lobby.

Did I mention infighting? The other interesting piece in the LA Times is by Milton Viorst. He compares Condoleeza Rice’s current position to that of Richard Nixon’s secretary of State, William P. Rogers, whose effort to forge a land-for-peace deal in 1972 was scuttled by Henry Kissinger. The article has some fascinating historical details and I’d strongly advise reading the whole thing, but the most pertinent part is this:

Whether or not Secretary Rice knows it, she now walks in the haunted footsteps of her predecessor William Rogers. After years of near silence, she has made clear her conviction that the national interest requires Israeli-Arab peace. Like Rogers, she has been circuit-riding throughout the region to enlist support. At home, instead of Kissinger, Rice faces Vice President Dick Cheney and Elliot Abrams, deputy national security advisor — committed neocons who have the president’s ear. As a result, the peace campaign on which she has embarked has emerged as her policy, not Bush’s.

The Washington Note adds a few details and concludes:

Cheney is out there working hard to sabotage Condoleezza Rice’s efforts in the Middle East, particularly her Middle East Super Summit.

IPS reports that not only are a large majority of Palestinians in favor of the plan, but American Zionists on the left and the right are showing interest:

“The initiative is really gaining momentum,” said Ori Nir, a spokesman at Americans for Peace Now (APN), a Washington-based Zionist peace group. “Even a week ago, it wasn’t really on the (Israeli) public agenda, but now you have cabinet ministers talking about it.”

At the same time, a new poll released over the weekend by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that nearly three out of four Palestinian respondents in Gaza and the West Bank support the initiative…

The story also mentions that two prominent neoconservatives, Representative Steven Solarz and Kenneth Adelman, signed on to an International Crisis Group statement, which concludes that “there exists now a major opportunity to reach a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement.”