Israel Matzav

Why would Israel want to join the Arab world?

In an interview with al-Reuters yesterday, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former ambassador to the United States and Britain and adviser to King Abdullah, laid out his 'vision' of the best Israel can expect from the Arab countries:

Asked what message he wanted to send to the Israeli public, he said: "The Arab world, by the Arab peace initiative, has crossed the Rubicon from hostility towards Israel to peace with Israel and has extended the hand of peace to Israel, and we await the Israelis picking up our hand and joining us in what inevitably will be beneficial for Israel and for the Arab world."

The problem is that he isn't kidding. He actually believes that the 'Saudi peace plan,' which calls for Israel to return to the pre-1967 Auschwitz borders in exchange for 'full recognition' of Israel - but not diplomatic relations, let alone peace - is something an Israeli leader can accept. And he believes it because the Olmert-Barak-Livni junta, which is willing to sell its Jewish soul so that the 'Palestinians' will live in the Jewish heartland of this country in place of religious Jews, keeps encouraging him to believe this will happen:

The 22-nation Arab League revived at a Riyadh summit last year a Saudi peace plan first adopted in 2002 offering Israel full normalization of relations in return for full withdrawal from occupied Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese land.

Israel shunned the offer then, at the height of a violent Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But it has expressed more interest since the United States launched a new drive for Israeli-Palestinian peace at Annapolis, Maryland, last November, aiming for an agreement this year.

Prince Turki, who was previously head of Saudi intelligence, said that if Israel accepted the Arab League plan and signed a comprehensive peace, "one can imagine the integration of Israel into the Arab geographical entity."

"One can imagine not just economic, political and diplomatic relations between Arabs and Israelis but also issues of education, scientific research, combating mutual threats to the inhabitants of this vast geographic area," he said.

...

"Exchange visits by people of both Israel and the rest of the Arab countries would take place," Prince Turki said.

"We will start thinking of Israelis as Arab Jews rather than simply as Israelis," he said, noting that many Arabs historically saw Israel as a European entity imposed on Arab land after World War Two.

Of course, that would mean no Jewish state, but that doesn't matter to Olmert & Co., who will live in France by then, because at least then we wouldn't be deemed 'occupiers'. We'd be dhimmis instead. And because of this, the left, including Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily, goes to kiss Prince Turki's feet bottom.

But an Israeli participant at the conference, Yossi Alpher, co-editor of the Bitter Lemons Israeli-Palestinian Web site and a former senior intelligence official, welcomed the comments.

"I was delighted to hear Prince Turki's description of the comprehensive nature of normalization as he envisages it within the framework of the Arab peace initiative," Alpher said.

"His remarks should encourage us Israelis and Arabs to deepen and broaden the discussion of ways to reach a comprehensive peace, implement the Arab peace initiative and reach the kind of cooperation that his highness described."

Alpher said he hoped that once there was a comprehensive peace, Israel's Arab neighbours would accept Israelis "as Jewish people living a sovereign life in our historic homeland" and not as "Arab Jews" or "European Jews."

Bitter Lemons is supposed to represent all viewpoints. Alpher, contrary to your impression from the statement above, is meant to represent the Israeli side, not the 'Palestinian' one.

Look for someone from the Olmert government to point to Turki's statement sometime in the near future, and to brag how it shows that we are being accepted by the Arabs.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:23 AM