Knesset Speaker calls for adopting Saudi initiative

The Jerusalem Post ^ | 4/24/2002 | Nina Gilbert

[anotherview]

(21:05) Knesset Speaker calls for adopting Saudi initiative By Nina Gilbert

In a meeting with European Parliament faction leaders today, Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg said that any international peace conference must be based on the Saudi peace initiative.

Burg said the implications of the bold initiative are "full peace and normalization between Israel and all Arab states in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories."

Burg, who was attending the EU gathering in Brussels, said a peace conference should be convened soon in the same format as the 1991 Madrid conference. Burg suggested that the conference be dubbed "Madrid 2."

In Strasbourg, a Knesset delegation to the European Parliament reported that a resolution warning Israel that its observer status may be suspended is to be put to a vote tomorrow.

The resolution cites allegations that Israel has violated human rights in the territories.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the organization's Middle East special envoy Miguel Moratinos met with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in Ramallah today.

They were to have offered him an EU compromise for solving the stand off over the murderers of tourism minister Rahavam Ze'evi and Karine A weapons' ship suspect Fuad Shubaki, a PA source said.

The suspects are holed up in Arafat's compound and Israel refuses to withdraw from the compound until Arafat hands them over, which he vehemently refuses to do.

[onedoug]

And then all will be nice-nice, with the islamists having decided to "co-exist" with Israel, right?

Just imagine the "Ministry Of Defense" of this...so-called "palestinian" state, with steady throngs of Arab and communist military cheiftans paying "courtesy calls" to its "armed forces" as foreign troops flown in by the plane-load conduct joint "exercises" while palestinian laboratories inevitably engage in nuclear weapons research. All to "defend" themselves against the Jews, of course.

This Saudi nonsense is a ruse which leftist elites will endorse, reinforcing the west's continued degeneration of belief in itself.

Do we really have to wonder who'll rush to fill the vacuum once we've thrown in the towel?

[goldstategop]

Avraham Burg is an Extreme Leftist. His position on the so-called Saudi initiative is more evidence he's not exactly a bright bulb. After all he leads a party that's moored in the Israeli political cellar with a standing of 15%!

[anotherview]

Actually, no, Avram Burg is not an extreme leftist by any means. He is center-left, and his views tend to be pretty mainstream most of the time. Even Ariel Sharon called the Saudi proposal "interesting". It was only when all sorts of baggage was added at the Arab Summit in Beirut that it became unacceptable to Israel.

I think you have to have lived in Israel to understand why Sharon would be interested in the Saudi plan, and why Burg would tout it. The Israelis want nothing more than to live in peace with the threat from the Arabs ended once and for all. They are tired of watching their children die. Burg's message isn't all that different from Sharon's, and he is a member of a party in the current coalition.

Israel isn't about to capitulate, and I suspect if Labor took power tomorrow not much would change in Israel's policies.

Oh, and the 15% figure quoted doesn't take into account how many parties there are in Israel right now. In France, Chirac won the first round of voting with 19%. Israel, like France, is a parliamentary democracy with a very fractured political landscape.

If you want to hear the far left in Israel, listen to Meretz leader Yossi Sarid or some of the Peace Now crowd.

[onedoug]

Interesting. Thanks.

"...the threat from the Arabs ended once and for all."

We are even now in a death struggle for our western civilization that I'm really afraid the west simply will not realize....

Until it's gone.

[joesnuffy]

Not until mosques in America dot the landscape like McDonalds..and Islam becomes the predominant American religion..

[onedoug]

...and September 11 will have become a joyful Muslim holiday.

God help us.

[axxmann]

It was only when all sorts of baggage was added at the Arab Summit in Beirut that it became unacceptable to Israel.

This baggage is the so-called "Right of Return".
Suicidal for Isreal.