Saudi Arabia's Revived Plan For Middle East Peace

It's a bit of a jolt to realise that the Arab League has been discussing the Palestinian problem for more than 60 years. The first time it did so was in 1946, just a year after the league's creation, when the British-ruled mandated territory was about to be partitioned between Jews and Arabs - and it has been unable to come up with a workable solution since.

The league's 19th summit conference, which starts in Riyadh tomorrow, has generated much excitement that all could finally be about to change. Saudi Arabia is tabling a peace plan that will have the support of every single Arab country - the League has 22 members, including the Palestinians - and sets out their terms for ending 58 years of conflict with the Jewish state.

There are certainly some positive signs. Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, has given the initiative a cautious though conditional welcome. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, made headlines in Jerusalem when he talked of convening a regional summit conference that could bring all the protagonists together for the first time in 15 years. Condi Rice, the US secretary of state, has even cajoled the Israeli and Palestinian leaders into holding regular meetings, though Olmert is refusing to deal formally with the Palestinian unity government.

Plans for peace between Israel and the Arabs are nothing new, though the only ones to have been implemented are the bilateral agreements between Israel and Egypt in 1979 and between Israel and Jordan in 1994. The 1993 Oslo accords between Israel and the PLO are in force on paper but moribund in reality.

The significance of the Saudi plan is that it is comprehensive, and would, if implemented, mean an end to what many consider the world's most intractable conflict.

The grand bargain on offer in Riyadh is that the Arab world will give diplomatic recognition to Israel in return for a Palestinian state within the 1967 boundaries, with a capital in Jerusalem and with a "just solution" to the Palestinian refugee question. Israel would have to surrender the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians and the Golan Heights to Syria.

The plan was formally announced at an Arab League summit in Beirut in March 2002, though it was floated earlier in an interview given by then Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah - now King Abdullah - to the New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, an exclusive that gave birth to a peace initiative.

The circumstances were highly unusual. In the turbulent period after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, US opinion turned against its most dependable Arab ally and oil supplier because 15 of the 19 al-Qaida hijackers turned out to be Saudis. Abdullah's message was that the kingdom was a close friend of the US and was prepared to stick its neck out for peace.

"I wanted to find a way to make clear to the Israeli people that the Arabs don't reject or despise them," Abdullah said at the time. "But the Arab people do reject what their leadership is now doing to the Palestinians, which is inhumane and oppressive. And I thought of this as a possible signal to the Israeli people."

The timing of the initiative's endorsement by the Beirut summit was unfortunate. It coincided with one of the worst periods of the Palestinian intifada, when a Hamas suicide bomber killed 30 elderly Israelis sitting down to their Passover supper. That triggered a full-scale Israeli re-invasion of areas of the West Bank it had evacuated after the Oslo accords. The Saudi plan, not surprisingly, went nowhere fast.

Now things are different again. The Americans and British are looking for a way out of the mess that is Iraq. Iran is the biggest winner of the war and its influence is on the rise across the Middle East - through allies in Iraq, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories - feeding worries about a sectarian divide between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Tehran's nuclear ambitions have alarmed Washington's conservative friends in the Gulf, as well as Jordan and Egypt.

Last summer's war in Lebanon shocked the normally reticent Saudis out of their diplomatic closet. Having last hosted an Arab League summit in 1976, the kingdom asked to move this one to Riyadh from the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh. It then brokered the February Mecca deal between Hamas and Fatah that paved the way for the new Palestinian national unity government.

Riyadh is decked with flags and slogans extolling the country's constructive role. This "summit of solidarity" is taking place in the "land of peace and humanity", the posters and banners proclaim. No expense is being spared to make this a landmark event. Nearly every Arab head of state is expected to attend. Libya's Colonel Muammar Gadafy is staying away - but few will miss him.

The devil, as ever, lies in the detail. The Israelis dislike the emphasis on the right of return of Palestinian refugees - even though this neuralgic issue is more symbolic than real. They are unhappy with the "take it or leave it" demand for an unconditional return to the 1967 borders when UN resolutions leave room for ambiguity and negotiation.

Like most international summits, the outcome is largely pre-cooked and few surprises are expected. The Saudis have made clear there will be no revision of the original plan. And the idea that King Abdullah could follow in the steps of Egypt's Anwar Sadat and make a dramatic, taboo-breaking visit to Jerusalem seems unthinkable. Still, every nuance and signal will be clearly monitored. The Arab world looks like taking a historically significant step on the way to settling the bitter conflict with Israel. Just how significant could take a long time to work out.