Rarely has a peace initiative found so enthusiastic a welcome as has the formula proposed by Crown Prince Abdullah to bring an end to the bloodshed in the Middle East. Though, when first revealed in remarks dropped almost casually in a New York Times interview, they were presented as tentative ideas, the formula has now become, in effect, the only ray of hope in a scenario that has nothing to offer but more and more deaths and destruction.
President Bush has personally “thanked” Prince Abdullah for his initiative. Secretary of State Colin Powell has upgraded his assessment to an “important step” from a “minor development”. Most European nations have given the proposals their strong backing, as have other world capitals.
The Arab and Muslim world’s support is near total. The pundits who had predicted that Syria and Iran would not ride along with the initiative have been proved wrong. Ruling out any possibility of misinterpretation, it was Iran’s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi himself who told reporters in Tehran that his country was looking forward to the initiative “as a positive step toward liberating the Palestinian territories”.
All these make the crown prince’s proposal more than a “Saudi initiative”. The apter adjective, it would seem, is Pan-Arab or Pan-Islamic. The significance of this is that when the initiative wins the endorsement of the Arab League summit in Beirut, it would mean the backing of the entire Arab world — one of the two sides with an emotional stake in the nature of any settlement. A deal along the lines outlined by the initiative will remove from the collective Arab and Muslim mind the one grievance that lies under much of the perceived Muslim support for those who advocate violence as the only means of securing justice for Palestinians.
No one doubts what Israel’s response will be to the possibility of a peace that will deny it for ever the chance of owning the entire “biblical land”. The future the Zionists envisage for themselves is not one where they will live in peace with the Palestinians, with mutual respect. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has described his vision very clearly. “The Palestinians should be hit very hard, because if they don’t feel they have been defeated, it will be impossible to return to the negotiation table. They should suffer many losses.”
That is why he wants seven days of absolute quiet from the Palestinian side — while his army keeps on attacking refugee camps, assassinating Palestinian leadership, rocketing the infrastructure and occupying self-rule areas. Such quietness will mean that the Palestinians have “felt” that “they have been defeated”. That is Sharon’s minimum demand, and that is one demand the Palestinians — shot-up, starving and violated though they are — are not willing to concede.
Here is where the United States may have to move in. The hope is that, unlike Israel, the world’s sole superpower doesn’t need Palestinian humiliation to make it feel macho. Prince Abdullah’s formula does not require Israel’s humiliation. On the other hand, it seeks to guarantee its security, and offers Arab recognition and friendship in return for withdrawing from the occupied Arab territoires. The world has to convince Israel that it is a fair deal.
