Military

DATE=March 7, 2002

TYPE=Dateline

NUMBER=7-36026

TITLE=Saudi Peace Initiative

BYLINE=Judith Latham

TELEPHONE=202-619-3464

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Neal Lavon

CONTENT=

TAPE: CUT 1, BATTLE, :08, TAKE UNDER AND OUT DURING:

HOST: Israelis and Palestinians continue to kill each other at alarming rates in the newest round of Middle East violence. Saudi Arabia's diplomatic initiative last month to end the violence remains barely alive. In today's Dateline report, Judith Latham explores the international reaction to the Saudi proposal and its chance for success.

JL: The initiative by Saudi Arabia, first proposed in mid-February, has drawn interest, praise, criticism and acceptance from parties in the West, Europe and the Middle East. The proposal, floated by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in an interview, says that Arab states would grant recognition and peace to Israel if Israel withdraws from all the land it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Former U-S Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Walter Cutler told V-O-A's David Borgida that he regards the Saudi proposal as promising.

TAPE: CUT #1: CUTLER Q&A [FM BORGIDA] 1:45

"WC:I think it's important, one, because it comes at this particular time, when there is really nothing else of a serious nature on the table. And, two, it comes from Saudi Arabia.

DB: Why, in your view, has this initiative come at this time? Because clearly the Saudis understand that U-S and Western media attention has not been the most positive after 9/11. (OPT) Osama bin Laden and many of the terrorists involved in that were from Saudi Arabia. So clearly they have a public relations problem. (END OPT)

WC: Well, I wouldn't deny that one of the benefits that the Saudis might perceive in taking this initiative is the fact that they need and they would like to improve their image. On the other hand, I think you have to give them much more credit than this. And I say this because this comes from Crown Prince Abdullah. And having dealt with Crown Prince Abdullah for a number of years, I know that the Palestinian issue is something that is extremely high on this agenda. And so this is, I think, a genuine concern of his that goes way beyond p-r (public relations).

DB: How do you think the United States should play this from now on? Should the Bush administration be more actively involved in Middle East peace?

WC: I don't think we've been pushing enough. The first year of President Bush's administration, I think there was the hope that if we stepped back, that the two sides, the Israelis and the Palestinians, might decide to move forward on their own, and then we would step in. That hasn't worked. I think we have to be much more active. At the same time, we have to have more cooperation from the Sharon government. I would hope that the Arabs and we're looking at the Arab League summit would be more involved. And I think that this will help induce I hope it helps induce the Sharon government to step forward and be more cooperative."

JL: Former U-S Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Walter Cutler. Robert Lieber, Professor of Government at Georgetown University in Washington, says the substance of Saudi initiative is not really new, and its ideas go back to the Madrid conference of 1991. But they are important in terms of their timing and psychological impact. He says they suggest a way out of the devastating cycle of violence. However, Professor Lieber believes the Saudi plan poses some real problems for the Sharon government.

TAPE: CUT #2: LIEBER [FM LATHAM]

"From the standpoint of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Sharon and his colleagues, the principal reservation is that they do not want to seem to be rewarding Yasser Arafat since they blame him with some real justification for being responsible for the violence since September 2000. (OPT) And negotiating while the terrorist attacks are taking place in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, is something they don't want to do. The majority of Israelis embrace the long-term idea of 'land for peace.'

The problem is the conduct of Yasser Arafat and his colleagues in rejecting some very far-reaching peace proposals, first at Camp David and then at Taba, suggest they want land but not peace. (END OPT) If the situation ever changes and you get a Palestinian leader comparable to Anwar Sadat of Egypt, then the situation could be revolutionized overnight, and there could be real breakthroughs in the peace process.

While you have Arafat on the one side, and Sharon on the other, it's very hard to conceive of a real breakthrough toward a durable peace. On the other hand, you could get some sort of ceasefire agreement. Even if it's utopian to imagine that Arafat and Sharon could ultimately negotiate a permanent solution, I think it is conceivable that other steps could be carried out."

JL: Professor Robert Lieber of Georgetown University. Reaction in Israel to the Saudi initiative has been mixed. Prime Minister Sharon's response has been lukewarm, while Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer both members of the Labor Party have spoken glowingly about the Crown Prince Abdullah's initiative. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel has described the timing and content of the Saudi proposal as "positive."

TAPE: CUT #3: MEKEL [FM BUEL, 5-51166] 0:28

"Most people in Israel are sick and tired of this conflict, which has been going on for 100 years. (OPT) Israel has been around as a state for almost 54 years, and (END OPT) the time has come to put this Middle Eastern dispute behind us. Most people in Israel are eager to do that, and the question is 'Is the Arab world able to go in that direction?' If there is something new there, if it is more than public relations and more than rhetoric, we are very encouraged."

JL: Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel. President Bush has welcomed the Saudi proposal. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher says a senior U-S delegation headed by C-I-A Director George Tenet had "good and useful discussions" with Crown Prince Abdullah in Jidda. But he cautions that the ideas floated by the Crown Prince are not a blueprint for Middle East peace. Nor do they offer a solution to the current Israeli- Palestinian violence.

TAPE: CUT #4: BOUCHER [FM GOLLUST 2-287046] 0:35

"It's not a peace plan or a specific proposal to end the violence. It's an Arab state's vision of normalization in the context of a negotiated peace. It serves as a promise for a better life for the whole region, should the parties find a way to end violence and once again resume their negotiations. But the next steps, as we've always said, mean maximum efforts by the Palestinian Authority to confront violence and terror, and steps by the Israeli government to facilitate Palestinian efforts on security and help promote a more positive environment on the ground."

JL: State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. On the Palestinian side, Yasser Arafat has welcomed the Saudi initiative. And senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat says Crown Prince Abdullah's initiative represent the "most important ideas that have come from the Arab world since the convening of the Madrid Peace Conference." (BEGIN OPT) And he says hopes that "the Americans and the Israelis and others will not undermine these ideas." (END OPT)

But Bruce Jentleson, who was involved in Middle East arms control and regional security negotiations while serving in the State Department in the 1990's, says he worries that militant factions among the Palestinians would not carry out the proposal, if it were to be adopted.

TAPE: CUT #5: JENTLESON Q&A [FM CROSBY] 0:23

"Frankly, the most militant factions would not go along, in my view, with almost any agreement because their agenda is not a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian state. It really is the destruction of Israel. And every time the peace process has come close to moving to success, many of the more extreme groups have 'upped the ante' by stepping up their terrorism, not because they didn't like the terms of the agreement but because they didn't want an agreement at all."

JL: Former State Department official Bruce Jentleson. Henry Siegman of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York says he questions Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's willingness to enter serious peace negotiations. In a recent article in the New York Time, he examined the significance of Crown Prince Abdullah's peace initiative.

TAPE: CUT #5 SIEGMAN Q&A [FM LATHAM] 4:06

"HS: Saudi Arabia is a government that has the kind of weight and credibility in the Middle East that, if it pursues a particular peace initiative rigorously, the entire Arab world will support it. I do not expect any of the countries to block such an initiative. But frankly, the way things are going downhill between Israel and the Palestinians, the prospects of a peace agreement and the normalization of relations with Israel seem to be fading further and further into the distant future.

JL: You wrote that the Sharon government seeks 'pretexts to avoid the political process, not ways to renew it.' What leads you to that conclusion?

HS:(OPT) A government that is serious about taking advantage of opportunities to renew a political process would have done this a long time ago. (END OPT) The insistence by Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, that there cannot be a renewal of political discussions until there are seven days of total quiet without a rock or a stone being thrown or a shot being fired. Realistically speaking, that is a prescription for blocking any possibility of a resumption of political talks. (BEGIN OPT) A government that is intent on getting beyond the violence and renewing a political dialogue would have jumped at the Saudi initiative as a reason to explore a resumption of political talks with the Palestinians. (END OPT)

JL: If there were to be normalization of relations, as the Saudi peace initiative calls for, what would be in it for Israel?

HS: For Israel it would virtually be a dream come true. The big concern that Israelis have with good reason was that, after they make their compromises with the Palestinians to achieve a peace agreement, they will still find themselves facing hostile Arab neighbors. The Saudis have now said to them, 'This will not be the case.' (BEGIN OPT) Most of the Arab world will have Israeli embassies. They will have trade relations, and they will take the necessary steps to deal with Israel's security concerns.

JL: How significant do you consider the Saudi initiative to be? And what chances of success do you think that it might have? And, if not now, when?

HS: It must be understood that the Saudi initiative is not a plan or a map for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. It is simply intended as an incentive to Israel to undertake those negotiations. At the moment the situation there is so bad that it's hard to imagine those negotiations taking place in the foreseeable future. But some day they will do that. And, when they do sit down, they will know that the notion of Arab world's having normal relations with Israel is very much in the cards. (END OPT)

JL: The response of the U-S government initially was reported as being fairly tepid. How do you think that the United States should be playing the diplomatic card at this juncture?

HS: I think the United States should have taken advantage of the Saudi initiative. And it should have finally said to Prime Minister Sharon, 'The conditions you have placed on a resumption of the dialogue are unrealistic and unacceptable to the point where you are blocking the possibility of putting an end to this violence.' (BEGIN OPT) Unfortunately, the United States has not done that. I very much hope that Washington will re-examine its current stance and finally come to see that the policy from the very beginning of supporting the notion that the violence must end was a serious mistake. (END OPT) It was not a recipe for ending the violence without putting forward to the Palestinians some very tangible map of how an end to violence will put them on a road to statehood. (BEGIN OPT) One has to hope that in the light of what is happening right now the terrible human cost that is being paid for this that the United States will understand it is high time to change that policy. (END OPT)

JL: Henry Siegman of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a congressional subcommittee that Prime Minister Sharon "has to take a hard look at his policies to see whether they will work." Prime Minister Sharon countered that Israel had the right of "self defense" and blamed Yasser Arafat for launching a war of terrorism.

On Sunday Vice President Dick Cheney begins an 11-day trip to the Middle East, including stops in Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi peace initiative is likely to be discussed. And at the end of the month, Crown Prince Abdullah may present his initiative at the Arab League summit meeting in Beirut.

But in view of the violence of the past two weeks the worst since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war analysts doubt that diplomats will take over from the fighters anytime soon. I'm Judith Latham.