GAZA CITY/RAMALLAH, 20 April 2007 — Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni yesterday called on Arab states to show flexibility in their approach toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Arab League should show “some flexibility” in order to “reinforce the positive steps Israel has taken,” Livni said during a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

She said Israel was prepared to meet with an Arab League working group composed of Egypt and Jordan, but wanted other Arab states that do not have relations with Israel to take part from the start.

“Israel, on its part, is open to dialogue,” Livni said.

“Those Arab countries, with whom we don’t have relations, could be a party to such a process from the start, instead of setting conditions,” Livni said, according to a statement issued by her office.

Her statement came after the Arab League on Wednesday chose Egypt and Jordan to take the lead in approaching Israel to promote a Saudi Arabia-drafted peace plan to resolve the Middle East conflict. Egypt and Jordan are the two Arab states who fought wars with the Jewish state but have since signed peace treaties with it.

The two would try to “initiate direct talks with Israel, “call on the Israeli government and all Israelis to accept the Arab peace initiative and to take this opportunity to resume direct and serious talks at all levels,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal told reporters in Cairo at the end of an Arab League meeting.

Saudi Arabia will not be a party to the talks, Prince Saud added.

Israeli government spokesman Miri Eisin said that Israel would be happy to hear the ideas of the Arab initiative from their representatives. “Our position has remained unchanged, we will not dictate to them what to tell us and we will express our positions in response,” Eisin said.

In Amman yesterday, the Jordanian king urged Israel to accept the Arab peace initiative, telling the visiting Israeli Parliament speaker that the plan offered a historic opportunity for the region which must not be wasted.

Israeli Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik’s visit to Jordan is the second this week by an Israeli official amid stepped-up activity to revive peacemaking. Livni was in Jordan on Sunday, when she discussed Middle East issues with her Jordanian counterpart, Abdul-Illah Al-Khatib.

King Abdallah told Itzik — who is also Israel’s acting president — in a closed-door meeting that the initiative “reflects Arab commitment to peace” and “constitutes a historic opportunity to achieve Middle East peace and end decades of conflict between Arabs and Israelis.”

According to a palace statement, Abdallah also urged Israel “not to squander an opportunity that will ensure its recognition by all Arab states and real integration in the region.”

The Saudi plan — introduced in 2002 and revived during last month’s Arab summit in Riyadh — envisages full Arab recognition of Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal from territories captured in the 1967 Middle East War. It also calls for Palestinian statehood.

Meanwhile, two Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded yesterday morning in a shooting attack near the West Bank separation wall, west of Ramallah. The soldiers were riding in a Jeep close to the Ofer military base when their vehicle was fired at by Palestinian gunmen who then fled the area.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack.

— Additional input from agencies