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New Saudi Plan Seeks U.S. Involvement to Reinvigorate Mideast Peace Process
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Bush
& Abdullah
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WASHINGTON, April 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An eight-point document put forward by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, author of an Arab peace proposal, is a serious attempt to involve the United States more in the Middle East peace process, analysts said Saturday.
"It is an attempt to get the U.S. administration out of its silence and passiveness toward the situation in the Middle East," Saudi political analyst Dawood al-Shurayan said of the plan that Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah presented during last Thursday’s meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush at the president’s Crawford, Texas ranch.
"The plan includes the most important points of the Arab peace plan proposed by Saudi Arabia, but has bypassed controversial issues like the right of return of Palestinian refugees and the issue of East Jerusalem," Shurayan told news agencies.
"Political reality now does not accept such issues to be discussed at present. It can be discussed later," he said.
The plan, which appears to be largely an amalgam of existing proposals for ending the bloody Israel-Palestinian conflict, recommends:
- An Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian-ruled areas taken over in recent incursions;
- A lifting of the Israeli siege of Ramallah;
- The creation of a multinational peace force for the territories;
- The reconstruction of Palestinian infrastructure devastated by the fighting;
- Talks on U.S. security plans, including the Tenet work plan and the Mitchell plan;
- The halting of Israeli settlement building;
- A renunciation of violence by both sides;
- A concerted U.S. attempt to implement UN resolution 242 passed in 1967, which called for an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab lands.
The White House described the plan as "constructive.”
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted that the U.S. government was open to the idea of deploying international monitors in the Palestinian territories, rather than a peace force, but only if both sides agreed.
"The paper the Saudis presented has a whole series of ideas on it, many of which the president views we can make progress on," said Fleischer.
But not all the plan's recommendations are likely to win full U.S. support.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, currently visiting Afghanistan to assure U.S. troops stationed there “of the success of their mission”, said Saturday it would be "premature" to send peacekeepers to the West Bank.
Tarad al-Amri, head of the independent Jeddah-based Saeed Al-Amri Center For Strategic and Security Studies, also played down the importance of the meeting between Prince Abdullah and Bush.
"I don't believe there are going to be moves toward the peace process in the Middle East in the short term. The meeting was not successful on this aspect. There will be no instant results because of the meeting," Amri told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"Bush is still preoccupied with the ‘fight on terror’, and he views every thing within this framework. I believe Bush is trying to press Arabs, and Saudi Arabia, on this issue," he said.
Shurayan argued, however, that the Americans, by welcoming the plan, "have accepted it in principle. This is a success for the Saudi diplomacy to make Washington more concerned of the situation in the Middle East."
Amri countered that issues like "security in the Gulf, the U.S. military presence in the region, and the war on terrorism" received as much time on the debating table as peace in the Middle East.
Following talks with Prince Abdullah, Bush called for Israel to halt its incursions into Palestinian areas and renewed his demand that Arab states starve anti-Israeli violence - especially suicide bombings - of financial and rhetorical support.
Bush said he "appreciated the crown prince's assurance that Saudi Arabia condemns terror."
The Gulf state's de facto ruler has seen ties with the United States erode since Washington began its "war on terrorism" after the September 11 attacks.
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