Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa has just been in Jeddah for talks with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah on, among other issues, the political crisis in Lebanon prior to heading off to Damascus to try and mediate a breakthrough on the subject with the Syrian government. At the same time the Arab League is actively involved in a parallel diplomatic initiative. Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers, Ahmed Aboul Gheit and AbdalIlah Al-Khatib, are reportedly due in Jerusalem on Thursday for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the Saudi-inspired Arab peace plan (under which Arab states would recognize Israel in return for Israel’s withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders and the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state), not in their own but in an Arab League capacity.
The two initiatives are not interdependent although they are broadly related; resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will not automatically provide the magic wand to resolve the crisis in Lebanon but it should make the task much easier. After so many false dawns, the Arab world has learned to be wary of having high hopes that a settlement between Palestinians and Israelis is about to be found. Suffering optimism fatigue, we have become cynical about breakthroughs. But there are real grounds for hope this time. The fact that an Arab League delegation is going to Jerusalem to talk to the Israelis is proof. The league is making a leap of faith for peace. It would not be doing so if it did not believe that there is a serious chance of a breakthrough. What makes the difference is the change in the Israeli view toward the Arab land-for-peace plan and the appointment of the new, non-Hamas, Palestinian government.
When in 2002, King Abdullah, then crown prince, proposed the plan to the Arab League the Israelis rejected it; now Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calls it “revolutionary”. He still has objections over the status of Jerusalem and the rights of Palestinians to return to Israel but appears willing to negotiate. That adds up to an ideological change of direction. Coming on top of it is the practical breakthrough following the split between President Abbas and Hamas and his appointment of the Hamas-free Palestinian government led by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. It has resulted in the unblocking of Palestinians funds by the Israelis and the agreement to release 250 Palestinian prisoners — but, more significantly, to a new mood of dialogue between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, evidenced in Sunday’s Jerusalem talks between Prime Minister Fayyad and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the first between the two. But there has to be more to this than the release of Palestinian prisoners, encouraging though it is, or the common aim of sidelining Hamas. That will not last if there are no groundbreaking political concessions by the Israelis that give Palestinians hope for the future. Inevitably, they and Arabs generally will be suspicious about the Israelis’ upbeat take on events, fearful that it is yet another devious attempt to hoodwink them into believing that something is about to happen. But we must hold on to hope and seize every opportunity available.
