Arabs Endorse, Israelis Reject Mideast Peace Plan

Reuters ^

[RCW2001]

Arabs Endorse, Israelis Reject Mideast Peace Plan
Last Updated: March 28, 2002 10:24 AM ET
By Samia Nakhoul BEIRUT (Reuters) - Arab leaders unanimously agreed on a far-reaching Saudi proposal for peace with Israel on Thursday and closed ranks against any U.S.-led attack on Iraq. But Israel promptly rejected the Arab peace plan as a "non-starter" that implied destruction of the Jewish state. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians were bracing for fierce Israeli reprisals after Wednesday's suicide bombing that killed 20 people in the coastal city of Netanya. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat from Beirut to try to head off a new wave of violence. "I urge the leadership of both peoples to stay the course and continue the quest for peace," he said in a statement. "The essential first step is an immediate cease-fire." A Beirut Declaration issued at the end of an often stormy two-day summit in the Lebanese capital endorsed a Saudi plan offering Israel peace and normal ties if it returns all occupied Arab land and agrees to live alongside a Palestinian state. It said Israel must also agree to a "just solution" to the Palestinian refugee problem in line with a 1948 U.N. resolution that calls for them to be repatriated or compensated. In return the Arab countries would "consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended and enter into a peace agreement with Israel (and) establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace," the document said. REGIONAL TENSIONS Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah proposed the plan in a bid to halt 18 months of worsening Israeli-Palestinian violence and calm regional tensions that have soared since the September 11 attacks on the United States by Arab suicide hijackers. He piloted it through the summit despite Syrian reservations and in the absence of several key Arab leaders. Israel kept Arafat bottled up in the West Bank, saying he had failed to halt attacks by militants. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan decided at the last minute to stay at home for reasons yet to be fully explained. The Arab peace terms break little new ground, but do stress the Arab world's readiness to accept Israel in the region -- something which the conservative Islamic theocracy of Saudi Arabia had previously found particularly distasteful. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon said his country could not accept the return of Palestinian refugees to the homeland they lost when Israel was created in 1948. "The Saudi initiative as it was presented by the summit of the Arab League represents a non-starter," he told Reuters. "We cannot accept on the one hand to have negotiations for the creation of a Palestinian state, an independent Palestinian state, and on the other hand have all the Palestinians come into Israel," Nachshon said. "This means the destruction of the state of Israel and obviously we cannot agree." Arafat gave his blessing to the Saudi plan in a televised speech originally intended for the summit. Lebanon's refusal to air his address by video link prompted a furious Palestinian walkout on Wednesday, but delegates later rejoined the summit. Apart from setting terms for ending more than half a century of conflict with Israel, Arab leaders soothed disputes festering between Iraq and Kuwait since the 1990-91 Gulf crisis. Iraq, keen to secure Arab support against a declared U.S. intention to topple President Saddam Hussein, came near to promising not to repeat its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. OLD ENEMIES EMBRACE Arab leaders, who clapped when the heads of the Saudi and Iraqi delegations embraced before them, called for the definitive lifting of U.N. sanctions imposed for the Iraqi invasion, as well as for U.N. resolutions to be respected. "We stress our total rejection of any attack on Iraq," they said in the Beirut Declaration read at the close of the summit. Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah told Reuters he had even shaken hands with Iraqi presidential envoy Izzat Ibrahim during a closed summit session. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are close U.S. allies and their support would be important if the United States decided to extend its war on terror to Iraq, lumped by President Bush into an "axis of evil" with Iran and North Korea. The Beirut Declaration "welcomed Iraq's confirmation to respect the independence, sovereignty and security of the state of Kuwait and guarantee its safety and unity to avoid anything that might cause a repetition of what happened in 1990." U.S.-led coalition forces drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, ending a seven-month occupation.

[TigersEye]

So, the Palestinians on the West Bank are to be denied a vote on self-determination for all eternity?

No, not at all. Just as it is in the U.S. felony criminals and illegal aliens don't have the right to vote.

...But do you know any difference between the Israeli Occupation and totalitarianism?

Yes. There is no 'palestinian state' and never has been. Isreal is in control of that territory because they were attacked by Arab states with cooperation of its inhabitants and won. Therefore there is no 'occupation' of 'palestine' by Isreal. What there is is occupation of Isreali territory by refugees from Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia etc.. These illegal aliens are criminals that foment revolt and commit murder against the legitimate owners of the land. Cracking down on criminals and revolutionaries isn't anything like totalitarianism. The U.S. wouldn't tolerate it even if the revolutionaries were citizens. The law and the Constitution would support cracking down on them.

Are you ready to cede southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and part of Texas to illegal aliens from Mexico and hispanic Americans so they can have a self-determinative state? There is a serious movement to accomplish that. Don't they have a right to their own land? There are a lot of them that live on it. They want it. If the U.S. won't give it to them won't they have a right then to attack and kill U.S. citizens until they get it? If it works for Arafat and his gang they will have good reason to believe that it will work for them. Especially if our own President supports it in Arafats case.

[PA Engineer]

Yep! Anyone who has been around FR and followed BF's posts know how proud he/she must make the Einsatzgruppen. I think it is BF's cynicism I despise the most.

[rnf_fusilier]

You seem to be alone on this thread over the Saudi Peace Plan. My take on the reaction is that, the Israeli-firsters are following the Nile to Euphrates faction in Israeli politics who persist in the desire to create what they believe is the 'God given' grant of land to his 'chosen people'. A negotiated settlement based on the Saudi plan would give Israel what is has never had, clearly defined borders. No wonder Sharon would not allow Arafat to go to the conference. Likud and its allies cannot allow any move to a settlement which would constrain their territorial ambitions. People have said that the plan gives Israeli nothing, as if the acceptanced by the Palestinians and their allies of the Israeli acquisition of 78% of Palestine is nothing! No matter how much they twist and turn over the issue, the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the creation of a viable Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Genocidal fanatasies on both sides,remain just that fantasies.

[luvzhottea]

Bush backs Saudi plan