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| Volume IX, June 2002, Number 2 |
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| EXCERPT: The Saudi Peace Plan: How Serious? |
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| Graham E. Fuller |
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Mr. Fuller is a resident consultant for RAND Corporation and a member of the Middle East Policy Council's editorial advisory committee.
The Saudi Peace Plan, or the
Crown Prince Abdullah Peace
Plan, is one of the more unusual,
even curious documents to emerge from two decades of peace process. It is unusual in terms of its origins, the statement of its goals, and its reception. Is it political eyewash or serious diplomacy? How seriously should we take it?
First, its origins go back to a curious meeting in which New York Times correspondent Tom Friedman, who just happened to be visiting Riyadh a few months ago, happened to notice that both he and Crown Prince Abdullah shared similar views on how peace might be achieved between Arabs and Israelis, and the Crown Prince happened to mention that he had a peace proposal in the drawer of his desk that he was wondering what to do with. Whatever we may think of this piece of theater, the fact is that Abdullah did indeed produce a peace plan that, with some amendments, was presented to the Arab summit in Beirut in March 2002. The plan quickly attracted much international attention.
In fact the plan contains nothing startlingly new at all. It presents familiar concepts drawn in broad terms that basically endorse a complete Israeli pullout from the territories occupied since June 1967 in return for normalized diplomatic relations to be established between Israel and the the Arab states -- the old but valid land-for-peace formula.
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