BEIRUT, March 26, (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The U.S. is pressuring Arab leaders to accept a Saudi land-for-peace proposal in the coming Arab Summit, a leading British daily newspaper reported Tuesday, March 26.

U.S. President George W. Bush told Arab leaders Monday, March 25, to "seize the moment" and accept the "peace plan" put forward by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, the Independent reported.

The paper suggested that the "Americans, it seems, want a blanket endorsement of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's proposal - even though it does not cover the so-called ‘right of return’ of Palestinian refugees nor whether Arab recognition of Israel should precede or follow an Israeli withdrawal."

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney telephoned Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Monday night on the eve of a crucial Arab summit in Beirut. The two men reviewed "Middle East peace efforts and regional and international developments," Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

The driving force behind the plan, Crown Prince Abdullah, has explained his offer for which he will seek endorsement at the Arab summit opening Wednesday, March 27, in Beirut, as a test of Israel's willingness to make peace.

"We want to live in peace and security, and if they [Israelis] don't accept [the peace offer], we will have exposed them," Prince Abdullah said Saturday, March 23, quoted by AFP.

"We will have shown the whole world that it is the Arabs and Muslims who want peace whereas some -- I don't say all -- Israelis don't want peace," said the Gulf state's de facto ruler.

"If it is accepted [by the Israelis], this will be what we wish because we don't want to fight and we are not bloodthirsty."

However, stopping short of rejecting Saudi Arabia's peace proposal, the Israeli government has done little to disguise its hostility to the initiative, which calls for a complete withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from land Israel seized in the 1967 war.

In typically blunt fashion, hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set out his opposition to such a move, even in return for a comprehensive peace deal with the Arab world, in an interview in the Washington Post at the weekend.

"What's interesting is the vision of peace and normalization with all the Arab world," he said. "But there appears to be a precondition -- Israeli withdrawal to the '67 borders. Israel will not be able to do that if it wants to survive."

But the Labor Party, Sharon's main partner in the national unity coalition, immediately hailed the Saudi idea as a glimmer of hope after nearly a year and a half of grinding violence.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, a Labor party stalwart, greeted it particularly warmly. "These proposals are new, interesting and fascinating," said Peres, one of the architects of the now-crumbling 1993 Oslo peace accords.

The two radically different Israeli approaches - skeptical distrust on the right, hopeful enthusiasm on the left - have accompanied the initiative as it snowballed from a test balloon in the U.S. press to the main item on the agenda of this week's Arab summit.

The Saudi initiative calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital and a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees who fled homes in what became Israel in 1948. In return, it offers Israel peace and normal ties with the Arab world, only two of whose members - Egypt and Jordan - have signed treaties with Israel.

Meanwhile, Arab League foreign ministers drafted a statement Monday supporting the "steadfastness" and "courage" of the Palestinian people, CNN reported.