Posted on 01/20/2008 6:05:24 AM PST by Alouette
Prince Turki al-Faisal, adviser to King Abdullah, says if Israel accepts Arab League plan and signs comprehensive peace, 'one can imagine the integration of Israel into the Arab geographical entity'
Reuters Published: 01.20.08, 15:15 / Israel News
A senior Saudi royal has offered Israel a vision of broad cooperation with the Arab world and people-to-people contacts if it signs a peace treaty and withdraws from all occupied Arab territories.
In an interview with Reuters, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former ambassador to the United States and Britain and adviser to King Abdullah, said Israel and the Arabs could cooperate in many areas including water, agriculture, science and education.
Asked what message he wanted to send to the Israeli public, he said: "The Arab world, by the Arab peace initiative, has crossed the Rubicon from hostility towards Israel to peace with Israel and has extended the hand of peace to Israel, and we await the Israelis picking up our hand and joining us in what inevitably will be beneficial for Israel and for the Arab world."
The 22-nation Arab League revived at a Riyadh summit last year a Saudi peace plan first adopted in 2002 offering Israel full normalisation of relations in return for full withdrawal from occupied Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese land.
Israel shunned the offer then, at the height of a violent Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
But it has expressed more interest since the United States launched a new drive for Israeli-Palestinian peace at Annapolis, Maryland, last November, aiming for an agreement this year.
Prince Turki, who was previously head of Saudi intelligence, said that if Israel accepted the Arab League plan and signed a comprehensive peace, "one can imagine the integration of Israel into the Arab geographical entity".
"One can imagine not just economic, political and diplomatic relations between Arabs and Israelis but also issues of education, scientific research, combating mutual threats to the inhabitants of this vast geographic area," he said.
'His remarks should encourage Israelis and Arabs' His comments, on the sidelines of a conference on the Middle East and Europe staged by Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation think-tank, were some of the most far-reaching addressed to Israelis by a senior figure from Saudi Arabia.
The desert kingdom, home to Islam's holiest shrines, has no official relations with the Jewish state, although both are key allies of the United States in the region.
"Exchange visits by people of both Israel and the rest of the Arab countries would take place," Prince Turki said.
"We will start thinking of Israelis as Arab Jews rather than simply as Israelis," he said, noting that many Arabs historically saw the Israeli state as a European entity imposed on Arab land after World War Two.
Prince Turki, brother of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, holds no official position now but heads the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh.
He said Israel could expect some benefits on the way to signing a treaty and making a full withdrawal, noting that after the 1993 Oslo interim accords with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, regional cooperation had begun and the Jewish state had achieved representation in several Arab states.
Those Israeli advances were reversed after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000.
Israel was wary of the Arab League plan partly because it would entail handing back the Syrian Golan Heights captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as well as re-dividing Jerusalem, of which Israel annexed the captured Arab eastern part in 1967.
But an Israeli participant at the conference, Yossi Alpher, co-editor of the Bitter Lemons Israeli-Palestinian Web site and a former senior intelligence official, welcomed the comments.
"I was delighted to hear Prince Turki's description of the comprehensive nature of normalisation as he envisages it within the framework of the Arab peace initiative," Alpher said.
"His remarks should encourage us Israelis and Arabs to deepen and broaden the discussion of ways to reach a comprehensive peace, implement the Arab peace initiative and reach the kind of cooperation that his highness described."
Alpher said he hoped that once there was a comprehensive peace, Israel's Arab neighbours would accept Israelis "as Jewish people living a sovereign life in our historic homeland" and not as "Arab Jews" or "European Jews".
The deal-killer in the Saudi plan is allowing the return of anyone claiming to be a descendant of a Palestinian refugee to Israel. In essence, Israel would cease to exist.
Along with partitioning Jerusalem, perhaps there should also be a partition of Medina. According to the Quran, there used to be a large Jewish community there before they were killed and driven out by Muhammad.
Much better and closer really to what he means.
Asked what message he wanted to send to the Israeli public, he said: “The Arab world, by the Arab peace initiative, has crossed the Rubicon from hostility towards Israel to peace with Israel and has extended the hand of peace to Israel, and we await the Israelis picking up our hand and joining us in what inevitably will be beneficial for Israel and for the Arab world.”
Hmmm. Sounds great guy but first the Saudi’s may want to make this believable by PHYSICALLY shaking hands with Israel which they refused to do at Annapolis.
They refused even to enter through the same door as a JOO.
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An insult to chimpanzees. Even rabid ones. At least they don't believe there is some ancient chimp down in a well who will come out to save the world, if you can just destroy it first.
And what about all the Shepardic and other Jews forced out of countries all over the Muslim world? Do their descendents get a right of return, or at least compensation. From the pillars of Hercules to the Tigris and Euphrates valley. With the most recent bunch (of any size) being from Ethiopia. One notable group around 45,000 were spirited out of Yemen in 1950 in Operation Magic Carpet. At the same time, Jews were evacuated from Aden (now part of Yemen), Djibouti, and Asmara in Eritrea.
If the Arabs/Palis lay down their arms there will be no more war. If the Israelis lay down their arms there will be no more Israelis.
Israel made a test withdrawal from Gaza and now gets rocket barrages from Gaza that make parts of Israel near unlivable
So your issue is that you don't get oral sex?
The real problem is Israel never accepts the loss of Muslim land.
They want Spain back
They want the land back that Israel sits on
Apart from land they once controlled, Islam's ideology is to make Jihad until the whole world is Muslim and the Caliphate is brought back to rule it. Jihad goes dormant for decades and centuries when Muslims have no chance military but as soon as their forces and armies look good they engage in war and Jihad against the non Muslims
So Israel and the Saudis/Arabs can sign any peace treaty they want but the Muslims will always be back with more demands. If not in a year or a decade then in a generation. The Arab world is swamped with radical preachers who preach eternal Jihad and the younger generation is listening
Don’t project.
Jewish tribes lived and traveled bedouin-like throughout Saudi, and even fought alongside Mohammed’s armies until the Mohammed turned on them. To me, Mohammed’s turn about against the Jews was parallel to how Luther centuries-later turned on them.
BS.The arab countries would probably like cookies and ponies for everybody too. It doesn't mean they'll get them. Their maps are equally meaningful.
"full withdrawal from occupied Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese land"
THAT MEANS ALL OF ISRAEL.
There is not one pali or syrian map, flag or protocol that does not state that ALL OF ISRAEL is on muslim land.
Look up "israel "phased plan."
Those are LEFTIST Israeli policy planners).
In return forgiving up the Golan, Israel allows itself to be shelled into destruction, as well as losing early warning radar.
While you are at it, please be sure and show the benefits of giving up Gaza....
And all Israel has to do is give up Golan Heights, all of West Bank for the Saudis & Arabs to make peace with IsraelThe Saudis don't give a hoot about the Palis. It's just lip service. When push comes to shove, they'll(probably with lots of cash from the US too, your tax dollars at work) pay off the Palis to live in the new Palestinian statelet.
How about the "right of return" to flood the Israel that is still left with Muslims? Israel made a test withdrawal from Gaza and now gets rocket barrages from Gaza that make parts of Israel near unlivable
Saudis=Wahhabist terrorism. Shove their oil-blood money!
The Saudis are grabassticists. “bite me” might not be the right phrase here. perhaps “kuss em*q ibn sharmuta!” would be more to the point..
Both stolen from the “Exodus” movie poster...
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