Israel Matzav

The Saudi initiative bluff

Israel Harel takes the Saudis and the rest of the Arab world to task for putting an initiative on the table and then ignoring it out of fear that someone might actually want to negotiate peace with them.

Saudi Arabia and the Arab League have been silent for fear that Israel actually does want to reach an agreement. And agreements are reached via negotiations.

In other words, they, too, would have to make concessions - on Resolution 194, for example. And also on turning East Jerusalem, including the Holy Basin, into the Arab world's exclusive property. And for this, the Arabs (including the Palestinians ) are not at all ready.

They are not even ready to recognize Israel's right to establish a national home for the Jewish people here. Thus they were satisfied with scoring a lasting public relations coup, which continues to yield benefits to this day - thanks, among other things, to that conference at Ben-Gurion University.

The Saudis' behavior since the initiative was published proves that they are truly frightened by the possibility that even a Likud-led government might begin negotiations (while rejecting its dictate on the right of return ).

After all, even Benjamin Netanyahu has adopted the formula of two states for two peoples. And that is something that the Saudis and the Palestinians do not really want.

Read the whole thing.

Actually, the Saudis have not ignored their 'initiative' - as Harel himself points out, they continue to gain lasting public relations points from it.

But what they have done - for which they deserve to be castigated - is that they have refused to negotiate about it at all. At every step of the way, the 'Saudi plan' has been 'take it or leave it.' In that situation, Israel has no choice but to leave it.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:45 PM