Saudis Support Bush's Policy but Say It Lacks Vital Details

New York Times ^ | 6/26/02 | NEIL MacFARQUHAR

[kattracks]

IDDA, Saudi Arabia, June 26 — Saudi Arabia voiced its qualified support today for the Bush administration's initiative toward ending the Arab-Israeli conflict, noting that the plan left many crucial questions hanging, including how to end the present violence.

"It contained a clear American commitment toward finding a solution to the Middle East crisis," Prince Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, said in a news conference today. "It is very important that the U.S. plays its central role in this."

But he noted the lack of any defined mechanism to implement Mr. Bush's plans, and he said the kingdom awaited clarification from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Prince Bandar al-Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, was heading to the capital to confer with the secretary of state, officials said.

The soothing diplomatic statements stood in sharp contrast to the commentary in editorials and talk shows across the region.

"People are sick and tired of interim plans, interim solutions," said Mohamed Kamal, a political science professor at Cairo University. It was for that reason that Arab governments had pressed for a detailed American plan that would address specific issues like the status of Jerusalem, a timetable for withdrawing from settlements, and the return of Palestinian refugees.

"The political process is essential to curb the violence," Prince Saud said. "Without this political process, violence can be stopped for awhile, but not curbed forever.

"Therefore it is our sense that a political process that will be convincing to both sides will also be convincing to curb the violence," he said. "Without that, nothing can be done, which is why we think it is important to identify the sequences to the ideas that were in the president's speech."

The Saudis also criticized the Palestinians, with one official saying that Mr. Arafat had appeared in recent months as too intent on clinging to power. The foreign minister suggested that Mr. Arafat could have done more, even though the Palestinians themselves have taken steps toward reforms and elections, scheduled for January 2003.

"It's true that it took a long time, and we hoped it wouldn't take that long," Prince Saud said. "With all that is going on in the region, this delay is not helping their interests."

At a summit-level meeting in Beirut in March, Arab leaders adopted a Saudi proposal to commit to normal relations with Israel once it withdrew to the borders it maintained before the 1967 war.

While Arab leaders appeared serious about seeking peace, anger in the street was still virulent.

"Bush seems to have forgotten about all the innocents who were killed by the Israeli Army for many years now, including Palestinian infants, only the Israeli innocents were mentioned," said Fatmi Ali, a 24-year-old Egyptian graduate student in political science.

"This statement fuels the hatred in the hearts of all the Arabs not only towards the Americans, but towards the Arab leaders as well," Ms. Ali said. "It was shocking to find all the Arab leaders including Arafat welcoming the speech of disgrace."

[Mike Darancette]

W set the Target, it's up to the Palistinian people to hit that target.

Grow up Arabs.

[brat]

LOL What a joke! THEIR plan lacked more vital details than any one of W's sentences!

[AZFolks]

I agree it lacks details. It is up to them to put meat on the bones of the plan.

[Billthedrill]

Well, you know the old saying about how you can lead a camel to water but you can't make him drink...

What they're talking about isn't a structure within which the participants can work toward peace, it's a plan in which the U.S. mandates and enforces peace, rather a larger project. In fact, an impossible one in view of the fact that a sizeable and violent portion of the population doesn't have the slightest intention of pursuing peace at all.

We're dealing with two populations here, IMHO - one that, due to decades of propaganda insistence, really believes that the U.S. can control other countries' foreign policies by sheer force of majesty, and the other who finds that impression useful to promulgate even though it knows that it's entirely false. The latter use the U.S. as a skapegoat and as a smokescreen for its own lack of activity in this area, and here I'd class the Saudi government; the former is that poor "Arab in the street" who hates us, cheers the WTC murders, and then wonders why we aren't more congenial toward his interests.