MJ,

It is not a blueprint but an offer that takes effect once the blueprint is agreed upon. It need hardly be noted that the offer, full peace and normalization with the entire Arab world, goes beyond Israel’s wildest dreams. It is inconceivable that Israeli will respond “thanks, but no thanks.”

Two days ago, the foreign ministries of Jordan and Egypt were delegated for the working group to advance the Arab League initiative to the Quartet and Israel.  King Abdullah II, meeting in Amman with Dalia Itzik's Knesset delegation said,

The king responded again and again that everything would be consensual. He claimed the Arab peace plan is not a plan but talking points. After [former Knesset Speaker Rueven] Rivlin said the Arab League secretary commented "Take it or leave it," Abdullah said "Leave him to me." He did say that instead of talking about he right of return, it might be necessary to talk about the right to compensation, and that it was not only an Israeli problem, but also a problem of the wealthy Arab countries.

While the initiative is not a "take it or leave it" ultimatum to King Abdullah, he obviously respects the perspective that it very much appears that way to Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa.

Despite the common wisdom of Israeli hesitancy at best, or "rejection out of hand" at worse, Prime Minister Olmert has reportedly invited King Abdullah to Israel to discuss it, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has been consistently reiterating Israeli concerns for flexibility,

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, urged Arab states Wednesday to be flexible in their land-for-peace offer to Israel, warning that without a solution to the conflict, the Middle East is at risk of missing the train of human and economic development....

But he called the Arab initiative a general concept that has to be developed. He urged the Arabs and Israel to deal with the plan as a starting point in negotiations rather than a take-it-or-leave-it proposal.

"The important thing is to get the negotiations started. In any negotiations there are changes in positions, because negotiations are like that," Solana told reporters on the sidelines of the summit.

Since virtually no one in the Middle East can tell the truth to their own people it is always hard to know what is going on there. Haaretz is very hopeful that all the diplomatic activity is the beginning of serious decussions. Although tend see both Abbas and Olmert as too weak politically to make any deals.

As for the interpretation of the Saudi Plan and Res. 194 it is a bit like Res. 242. The latter does not talk of "the" territories but territories. That bit of lawyering in and of itself has not brought peace. Similar the idea that Abbas can negotiate with Israel and Hamas is an unknown. This is why taking discussion of Israel seriously here is so difficult.

Hamas won't commit to ending violence, apparently it is supplying missiles to Islamic Jihad to fire at Israel, suicide bombers have been stopped at various borderpoints and they won't agree to recognize past agreements with Israel. Israel can take the risk of entering into a deal recognizing that the IDF will have to be prepared to wipe the new Palestinians state off the map if Hamas acts as Hezbollah is in Lebanon or the Shiites and Sunnis are acting toward each other in Iraq.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Now, I'm not convinced either by that reading of the original UN resolution, which seems on the face of it to leave the choice to the refugees. And I'm not convinced that the Saudis or, especially, many Palestians read it go generously either. However, I still appreciate the post greatly.

Yes, it's a starting point for and invitation to negotiations (and besides, as you say, that's an awfully old resolution to worry about as too limiting). Just as important, it's putting something down, period, to talk about. The two principal parties have not been so helpful, the Palestians arguing among themselves over political authority or blowing themselves up, the Israelis handing over the Gaza (so there! take it and go away!) or using "disproportionate force" or walling in boundaries or saying "come to us when you're on our side." 

And I'm not lamenting this, despite how it sounds. We should expect it (although I am sad to have the right so successful in Israeli politics). These are injured parties. It has taken in the past U.S. leadership, which of course at present is an oxymoron. I cannot even promise that the Arabs have the power to pull of the third-party role, even with this beginning. But one day the U.S. may be in need of the outside world again. This next time, it'll have a broader group backing it or even taking the lead.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Bradley Burston a pro-Palestinian State Israeil who writes for Haaretz has a much better grasp on reality than many who write about Israel. He understands that it is not Abbas who has to come to terms with Israel but Hamas.

"As it turns out, not one but two nations were born on Independence Day 1948, two new peoples, who decided to call themselves Israelis and Palestinians.

Two new cultures were conceived as well, both of them based on the concept of Never.

For the newly Palestinian Arabs, humiliated, cast adrift, betrayed and forsaken by brother Arab and Western ally alike, the term Never became a sacred oath against ever giving in and recognizing the state of Israel.

Never, for Palestinians, came to mean self-esteem.

But when Palestinians say the word Never, what Israelis hear is "annihilation."

We Jews - post-Holocaust, pre-Iranian bomb - who long ago adopted "Never Again" as a mantra, cannot free ourselves from the suspicion that it is also a lie.

We need your help. And you need ours.

The belief - not without foundation - that all of your problems are traceable to occupation, has left you paralyzed, unable to govern, unable to make the changes you need in order to seek help, unable to make the changes you will need to make to become independent.

Your stated commitment to the concept of an armed struggle to replace Israel with a Palestinian state has not only cost you your independence, but has robbed you of once-unshakable allies in the West, the Eastern bloc and the Arab world.

You may not know the Jews, but you have seen that we are paralyzed as well. This much we share - we have become orphan peoples, the Jews and the Palestinians. We have no leaders left. Arafat is gone, Sheikh Yassin is gone, Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon as well.

You don't know the Jews, but you should know this. We are offering you a promise and a curse.

If you give a clear sign that you are willing to recognize Israel, you will have taken the most important step any Palestinian can take toward independence, one that Israel will be forced to match with a landmark measure of its own.

If, on the other hand, you opt for ideology and decide that a free Palestine cannot abide a Jewish state as a neighbor, we can make this pledge: A people which has been around for thousands of years will do everything in its power to teach you the true meaning of Never."

It would probably be very helpful if Hamas friends in America tell them the truth and not engage in made up histories or fantasies about ignoring those who are quite honest about wanting to kill Israelis.

I would recommend reading the whole column and reading Burston on a regular basis.
[www.Haaretz.com http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/849527.html]

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Here in Israel the mood is quite positive about the plan. At a meeting we had with former PM Netanyahu, even he was skeptical but positive.
It sounded to me that he is coming around to the idea that Israel and the Palestinians need to cut a deal so Israel can both enjoy economic growth and deal with the Iran threat.
As I have often said here at TPM, Israelis, in general, are far more open to the possibilities of peace and are infinitely less dogmatic than American Jewish organizations.
I would not expect much to happen however until after the report on Olmert's conduct of the Lebanon war comes out (next week) and the Labor Party primaries in late May.
But the general mood here is good.
As for the Palestinians, they, like the Israelis are cautiously optimistic. But, unlike the Israelis, their lives are nightmarish. For Israelis the occupation is invisible. For Palestinians it is a prison from which there is no escape.
This is my 40th trip here and I can tell when the mood is good and when it's bad. It's good now but everyone here seems to understand that the good times won't continue without movement toward peace.

It is simply an offer that takes effect the day after Israeli-Palestinian peace is established. In other words, 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.

I'm more optimistic about the Saudi plan than any other post-Oslo peace initiative because of the real possibility that it could involve Israel's Arab neighbors as more than simply passive endorsers of any Israeli-Palestinian peace.  (Which admittedly is better than active spoilers ala Syria and Iran.) 

The problem with viewing the Saudi plan as a "day after" offer for normalization is that without active participation by the Jordanians, Egyptians and Saudis, a functional, non-irridentist Palestinian state does not emerge.  Without such a state, the ensuinig anarchy will lead to a repeat of the collapse of Oslo.

Relying on the moderation of Hamas seems to be a dubious long shot.  What is plan B?  Did Abdullah or any of the Jordanians have any creative ideas about how to neutralize Hamas if it chooses not to cooperate or to address the inevitable splinter rejectionist groups if by some miracle a two-state Islamist party emerges?  Somebody's boots besides Israel's need to be on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza to enforce the peace.  Who does the IPF think they should be?

None of what I said was fiction, Daniel. The way I look at it is there is a universe of facts about the I-P conflict. The Palestinians and the Israelis both have selected a subset of that universe of facts with which they compose their own people's narrative.

I could, and often do, present facts that are seemingly in competition with the ones that you present. In the end, there's got to be some mutual acknowledgement - a willingness on the part of both the Palestinians and the Israelis (and their respective supporters) to recognize that one set of facts doesn't necessarily contradict the other. Have you ever considered that perhaps both sets of facts are true?

Know your enemy well, for in the end that is who you become. ~~Old Chinese Proverb

There are some obvious indications of progress in the Saudi plan. First, it is a recognition of Israel supported by most Arab states. Second, no true Middle Easterner believes in "take it or leave it." The plan is subject to long and tough negotiation and a the demand for an immediate start with Abbas is really pointless; one can start next week or next month as long as it is not next year.

242, 338 and 194 really matter considerably less than the reality the there must be a viable Palestinian state and the land between the sea and the Jordan river is limited, insufficient and has to accommodate two nations. Among other things, it make "return" impossible.

The Saudi Plan and Palestinian "Return"

In re: quotation marks for Palestinian claims.
I'm in favor of negotiations, of course, but we should note the bizarre logic of Palestinians' negotiating partners, the "fair-minded" "liberal" zionists.

as you were.

That is just not true on any grounds. The land that is not called Palestinians got its name from the Romans. At one point the Arabs living in this region rejected the name Palestinian precisely because it was given to them by the Romans.

After the Romans came the Byzantines, the Seljuk Turks, the Crusaders, the Seljuks again, breifly Kurds, Saladin was a Kurd, briefly the Mongols, then the Ottoman Turks and after WWI the British. What is now called Palestine was part of the Ottoman's province of greater Syria.

If you want to argue that as a reaction to growing nationalism in the 20th Century and in particular the growing presence of Jewish Nationalism in the region the Arabs developed their own I agree. That there was some great Palestinian national movement prior to the arrival of the Jewish purchase of land from Ottomans and Arabs is hard to believe.

Making silly comparisons to efforts to exterminate all Jews, who were citizens of all the countries you mention only reflects on those who make the comparison. I realize that the Palestinians as victim is supposed to give their apologists carte blanche to ignore facts and engage in fictions. I see no need to join in it.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Sorry, there is no "Saudi Peace Plan", there is only a "Saudi Jihad Plan". This "plan" only exists to make the Saudis look good in European and American eyes, being that they are the number one purveyor of Islamic extremist and genocidal Judeophobia in the world (15 of the 19 suicide terrorists of 9/11 were Saudis).
People like MJ and Akiva Eldar claim that the Saudis "need peace with Israel" because they fear Iranian Shiite expansion. Sorry, but the Saudis have enough hate in them for BOTH Jews and Shiites. Official extremist Sunni (e.g. Saudi/Wahhabi) ideology holds that the Jews and Shiites are in league together and that Shiism came about as a result of a Jewish conspiracy in order to divide Islam. MJ is thrilled because this "peace plan" says that the "whole" Arab world will establish "normal" relations (like those with Egypt?). How the heck can the Saudis speak for the whole Arab world? How can they speak for the Palestinians? How can they speak for HAMAS and HIZBULLAH?

If the Saudis were really interested in peace they would first turn their attention to solving the genodical, fratricidal strife in Iraq, where every month 3000 Iraqis are butchered. Do you hear any protest in the Arab world about this. THEY CELEBRATE IT AND CALL IT RESISTANCE. Okay, so there are no demonstrations in the Arab world against it, we will attribute this to Arab regimes preventing demonstrations. What about in Paris? There are 7 million Muslims in France alone. Okay, you think the US should get out so I would understand a demonstration whose message was
"U.S. OUT OF IRAQ-TERRORISTS OUT OF IRAQ".
Are there any such demonstrations? NO.
The Arab/Muslim world is silent (or even revelling in it), just as they were silent during the slaughter in Algeria, and Lebanon and Yemen, etc. THEY DON'T CARE.
So MJ and those who agree with him, do you really believe that the Arab world is prepared for "peace" with Israel and are prepared to make the necessary concessions while they stand by and watch their brother Arabs slaugther each other?
Of course not. This peace plan is a farce.

Wordie,

If Israel fears such remarks might create a "spanner" then why publicize such remarks at all? I can't help wondering if this could be an attempt to derail the initiative.

From your perspective, can Israelis say or do anything without nefarious intentions?

I have no idea where to begin with the incoherence of those notions, but I'll give it a shot.

First of all, I assume you can agree that a people and a social covenant that defines it can exist despite it having no formal state- religion and kinship hold things together. Conquest alone doesn't change that, obviously.

There were non-Jewish or marginally Jewish peoples in I/P/Canaan continuously, and that is well documented Biblically and in Roman sources and since then. In Roman times Be'ersheva was Edomite, the Samaritans were in the northern hill country, with Galilee mostly Jewish.

The Philistines proper are a historical curiosity- they lasted all of 200-300 years in the archaeological record before inferentially being assimilated into the local Semitic peoples, and were a small group (maybe 20,000 people, according to Egyptian records) with origins in the eastern Aegean. That local Semitic peoples rejected being labelled as them is obvious- Philistines were a nonnative group.

It's easy to imagine from the Biblical description that the territory of the Twelve Tribes was religiously Jewish. Neil Silverstein says that isn't obvious in the archaeological record- there are idols and signs of Canaanite religion throughout much of the country up to the Assyrian conquest and dispersal, though less of that in Judah than elsewhere. The archeology says that a substantial portion of the population remained after destruction of the Northern Kingdom...though there's no proof, that would be the logical origin of the Samaritans. Likewise after the Roman destructions- substantial local populations remained.

Putting all the linguistics (which shows all the Semitic peoples of the region closely related, in a linguistic continuum from Ugarit to Edom) and genetics (shows the same) together with the archaeology (I don't like Neil Silverstein's book much, but the evidence is clear) and the Biblical evidence read intelligently, there is a consistent picture.

In short, the so-called Palestinians are with great certainty the descendents of various other remnants of the peoples of the Israelite kingdoms. They are materially the natives. They were (and are still) a clan-centered, agrarian village-centered, set of societies. So they never confederated against anyone until there were designs to take away the basis of their livelihood- their lands. So what?

"Making silly comparisons"...I referred nowhere to extermination, just to the formal legalisms of dispossession. Everywhere I've looked in 'pro-Israel' arguments, there's a view taken by extreme proponents that Jewish oppression and suffering are never comparable in any way to that of other peoples, especially Palestinians. That has a perverse theology of murder creating a sanction for just slightly lesser crimes, for failure of accountability.

I'm worried you buy into that excuse for a double standard- I see your invocation of "extermination" to bar any consideration of limited, reasonable, analogy. Of course Jewish dispossession and exile through the ages and e.g. the present Palestinian one are similar enough for intelligent comparisons- your denial of that isn't actually defensible.

And no, I can't say I'm an apologist for Palestinians. (The ones I've seen and heard annoyed me deeply and made poor cases.) In fact, I think more fundamental change is required of Palestinians than Jewish Israelis in the long run, but my criticism is focussed as it is because the Israeli side is presently the far greater obstruction to the process of social and political evolution, and mostly for poor reasons. I'm just not pro-Israel in the morally marginal or indefensible, paranoid-violent, occultic fashion that is to a large degree an imaginary war against Nazis long after the fact, with an imaginary resurrection of the Jewish Pale society lost in the Holocaust on I/P soil. (That PBS show letting Richard Perle lay out his argument for the Iraq war was an amazing illustration of exactly that as a personal politics and how it fails in the real world, btw.)

My interest is in actual Judaism- the religion of the prophets and people such as A.J. Heschel and Martin Buber, and so many excellent and humble people I live and worship among- adapting, surviving and prospering in the Modern world. Politics itself cannot bring this about, but venal, unwise, and low morality politics terribly damages and pains the people who are doing so.

Good post MJ. But I think you are missing something essential, King Abdullah's waltz onto the world stage.

Two weeks ago King Abdullah and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met in the Saudi capital Riyadh. It was a meeting intended to cool off the rising tensions between the two countries over their sympathies for the opposing sects in Iraq. It went badly. By mid-night Ahmadinejad was back out at the airport headed home in a huff. No joint press conference, no announcements. Abdullah didn't even send a royal family member out to the airport with Ahmadinejad to say goodbye. A few days later at the Arab League conference Abdullah is condemning our "illegal foreign occupation" of Iraq. And all of this went on while Abdullah was cajoling warring parties into the Mecca Agreement.

From within the empire we gleefully talk about the "collapse of this administration" and jokingly refer to Bush as a dead duck instead of a lame duck. But outside the empire this collapse is seen differently. The "sole surviving super power" isn't. What's collapsed, as a casualty of Iraq, is American hegemony. What we've proven in Iraq is that we, the Americans, can't do shit right anymore. In Caracas the teens stockpile the ingredients for making IEDs (it's not a government program, it's spontaneous, it's how you pick up chicks). And by coincidence - or by extension - the myth of Israeli invincibility has also bitten the dust.

Our inability to deal with reality in Iraq has created a power vacuum. And that vacuum is sucking people like King Abdullah onto the world stage. Cheney's rationale for invading Iraq was to prop up rulers like Abdullah and Mubarak in the power struggle in the Middle East. It back fired - and back fired terribly. Those guys are on their own. This Plan II is not a coincidence. It's didn't "just" happen. Abdullah is desperate to change the balance of power in the Middle East before it changes without him. And Arab nations opening up diplomatic, economic and investment ties with Israel would change everything. Sure, if the Palestinians get short changed in the process Abdullah and Mubarak face uprisings that could leave them twiddling their thumbs at a villa in Monaco. But if they can get past that point - the vehicle of change will pick up speed on the other side of the hill and they'll still be in the driver's seat. It's a desperate gamble, but that's what happens when the bully that's been protecting you shows up on the play ground in girly drag, you adjust.

Ehud Olmert has demonstrated an ineptitude for war making. Hopefully he has some talents for peace making and will use them. This offer is not coming his way because Arab governments perceive an Israeli weakness after the war in Lebanon. Just the opposite, the Arab governments are desperate to put the I-P conflict to rest. It looks like Abdullah has calculated that Arab League governments stand a better chance of survival through making peace with Israel than they do by continuing to watch things spin out of control as American influence whirls down the drain. Hopefully Olmert is hearing that same sucking sound these days and responds with some hard nosed negotiations.

Bill Richardson is fond of saying, "You don't make peace with your friends, you make it with your enemies". So hold your nose DanielGree, you can't get to the future by looking into the past. And we're all being sucked into the future whether we like it or not. The chaos in Baghdad IS the future, unless we change the dynamics that that chaos is feeding on. The I-P conflict is certainly not the cause of the Baghdad chaos, but resolving the I-P conflict, and opening Arab diplomatic, economic and investment ties with Israel, would deprive that conflagration of oxygen like nothing else could.

Zionista said:

From your perspective, can Israelis say or do anything without nefarious intentions?

Given that Olmert came out quite strongly against the initiative (he was against it just before he was for it) wondering about the seriousness of support for the initiative doesn't seem all that unreasonable. A casual glance at Haaretz shows that there are some in Israel who are quite definitely against it. Some of those who are against it may find ways of making it seem to be questionable. This is politics.

The "nefariousness" you seem to regularly accuse me of seeing in Israelis is what I see as being no more than a well-developed skill at disseminating propaganda. Both sides do it. That I often point out the Israeli propaganda, as I have said before, is because the Israelis are the ones who so far are winning the propaganda war.

Do you use these overly-dramatic terms, such as "nefarious," because they're far more effective, from a propaganda point of view? It sounds an awful lot to me like a backhanded way of accusing me of anti-Semitism, a la Dershowitz' list. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/when-legit-criticism-cros_b_3524.html

Know your enemy well, for in the end that is who you become. ~~Old Chinese Proverb

"My other would be that overwhelming a democracy like Israel would fundamentally change it."
Israel is a democracy with two classes of citizen, Jewish and Arab, with each treated differently under law.

bar - I'll give you a few examples. First is the matter of educational funding. I'm sure you know that arab schools receive only 1/3 of the money from the government as jewish schools. Just as important is job discrimination. It is so blatant in Israel that arab workers are hired ONLY if no Jewish worker is available. The criminal justice system is known for different sentences for the same crime between arabs and Jews. Discrimination in permit processing for housing, small business etc is just as blatant.

It is disengenous of you to opine on "treated differently under law" because the actual application of the law is outrageously discriminatory. I'm sure you have been to Israel and know these things are true. Quite frankly, the discrimination against Israeli arabs is MUCH worse now than in 1966 when I first started going to Israel once or twice a year.

Wordie,

Given that Olmert came out quite strongly against the initiative (he was against it just before he was for it) wondering about the seriousness of support for the initiative doesn't seem all that unreasonable.

However, you entered this discussion commenting on the Dalia Itzik delegation's meeting with King Abdullah II, not Olmert.

Wordie (cont'd),

It sounds an awful lot to me like a backhanded way of accusing me of anti-Semitism, a la Dershowitz' list.

Do you feel that it would add meaning and importance to your commentary to be accused of antisemitism, ala Pat Buchanan's formula...?

Indeed, it is the charge of “anti-Semitism” itself that is toxic. For this venerable slander is designed to nullify public discourse by smearing and intimidating foes and censoring and blacklisting them and any who would publish them.

Alaric, Attilla, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane,

and the yet more terrible Romans, from whose oppression escape is vainly sought by obedience and submission. Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To larceny, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a desert and call it peace, (Tacitus, Agricola XXX)

Since you dismiss any "statistics", how do I know you are right in your allegations?

Regarding the bomb shelters, I would imagine
that it was assumed that Hizbullah would not
target Arab towns and villages (an incorrect assumption as it turned out. You might now say, well, the rockets are inaccurate so they "accidently" fell in the Arab towns, but apparently it is too much to expect that Hizbullah would take care to avoid even the remote possibility of hitting their "brother Arabs" when choosing targets.)

I also presume that your assertion that "traditional Arab ownership is not
recognized" includes Arab Beduin claims that the entire Negev from Kiryat Gat to Eilat "belongs" to them due to the fact that they indeed wandered in these areas for centuries. No doubt there are also smaller-scale versions of such claims. I am
sure that these problems are not limited to Israel but are prevelant throughout the Middle East where modernization forced the Beduin and other nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes to settle down. No doubt much of the fratricidal violence that is plaguing Iraq, and other Arab countries has problems like this in the background in addition to ideological and religious differences.

Regarding the claim that "armament plants
are built near Arab villages so they will serve as human shields", I am sure you are well aware that the Arabs indisciminately and deliberately target civilian targets. Considering the known innaccuracies of the katyushas, the odds on hitting a particular building or plant are small, so I don't think that that was ever a consideration in the targetting decisions of Hizbullah.
In any event, if the Iranians decide to "liberate" their fellow Palestinian Muslim brothers by nuking Israel (G-d forbid), would you also claim that the fact that large numbers of Arabs would also be incinerated or irradiated also due to Israel "deliberately using them as human shields" by allowing Arabs to live near the Jewish populations centers that would be targetted? Hey, I have an idea...why don't we expel all the Arabs from Israel so that there will be a clear target for the Iranians?

I am surprised that you dispute the fact that the Arabs deliberately target civilians. How many "military targets" were hit during the big wave of suicide bombings which were encouraged by the official Arafat Palestinian government? I think you will recall they hit public parks, restaurants, shopping malls, synagogue courtyards, etc. The Qassam rockets fired
at Sederot and the neighboring communities are not aimed a "military installations" (there aren't any in Sederot as far as I know). The Katyushas were fired into neighborhoods in Haifa and the other towns of the north.

Look at Iraq for more examples. The "resistance", in their supposed fight against "American occupation" plows gasoline tankers or chorline-filled tankers into civilian markets or attacks mosques.
The vast majority of victims are civilians ane most like despise both the Americans and Israel, for that matter, but that doesn't seem to help them, just like the Arab victims of Hizbullah's Katyushas. I seem to be detecting a pattern here on the "Arab way of warfare".

Also, please give me examples of "genocidal racist actions by extremist settlers".