Global Policy Forum

Palestinians Shelve Proposed UN Resolution
in Support of Riyadh's Pledge to Recognize Israel
if it Cedes Gaza and the West Bank.

By William Orme

A tentative Saudi peace initiative helped avert a showdown over Mideast policy here Tuesday, as Security Council members lined up to praise a recent pledge by the kingdom to recognize Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from formerly Arab lands.

Palestinian diplomats, who have enthusiastically embraced Saudi Arabia's nascent proposal, agreed to withdraw a proposed Security Council resolution on the conflict that the U.S. had planned to veto. In a lengthy, often heated open debate about Middle East policy, Security Council members voiced alarm at the continuing violence in the region, with most strongly criticizing Israel's attacks on Palestinian security installations and its continued travel restrictions on Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

But the tenor of the discussion was notably altered by the recent Saudi assurances that Israel can expect peaceful relations with its Arab neighbors if it accepts the establishment of a Palestinian state on territory occupied by Israel after the 1967 Middle East War, including most of East Jerusalem. A number of Arab states have cautiously backed the proposal. The proposal has not yet been fully and officially articulated by Saudi leaders, and some Israeli diplomats have complained that it does not mark a major change in long-standing Arab policy. But the initiative has been welcomed by President Bush, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and even Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Arafat told recent visitors to his besieged West Bank compound that he had "encouraged and approved" the Saudi initiative, which was first floated in a pair of New York Times op-ed articles this month. In what could be a sign of either hope or desperation, almost every other speaker in the debate Tuesday evening here took pains to salute Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, the desert kingdom's de facto ruler, for trying to revive the moribund peace process.

Before the debate began, the Palestinians agreed to table a draft resolution that, if passed, would have put the Security Council on record for the first time as favoring an "independent, democratic and viable state of Palestine living side by side with the state of Israel."

The text circulated by the Palestinians before the debate deliberately echoed the Saudi formula, calling for both Israel's "withdrawal from the territories it occupied in June 1967, and for establishing normal relations among all states of the region based on mutual recognition and respect." The Israelis--as well as the State Department and a few European foreign ministries--believe that the terms of withdrawal should be left up to negotiators. The resolution, which may yet be revived, also calls for mediation by "the wider international community"--in other words, not the U.S. alone, which further raises American and Israeli hackles.

The Bush administration had instructed U.S. diplomats here to veto the proposed resolution--or any other resolution to which Israel would strongly object, U.S. officials said. "As a practical matter, Security Council action at this time will not resolve the problems between Palestinians and Israelis," John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the council Tuesday.

But U.S., European and Israeli diplomats noted privately that the Palestinian draft resolution had unexpectedly omitted proposals Israel had strongly objected to previously, including requests for international monitoring teams or peacekeepers. The more conciliatory Palestinian approach was widely attributed to growing Arab support for the Saudi proposal.

Negroponte noted that Bush spoke with Abdullah on Tuesday morning "and praised the crown prince's ideas regarding full Arab-Israeli normalization once a comprehensive peace agreement can be achieved." White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said the proposal "underscores Saudi Arabia's willingness to reach out to Israel, and that, the president finds, is encouraging." Still, Bush does not believe that the proposal is a "major breakthrough," Fleischer said.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who last week described the Saudi initiative as a "minor development" in the region, said Monday that the idea was an "important step." Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said after meeting with Sharon in Jerusalem on Tuesday that the prime minister said he "would like to know more about the content and he would be ready to meet anybody from Saudi Arabia--formally, informally, publicly, discreetly, whatever--to get better information about this initiative."

Solana headed for Saudi Arabia to discuss the proposal directly with Abdullah today. The subtle but significant Saudi policy shift was first signaled in a Feb. 17 New York Times column by Thomas Friedman, who wrote that Abdullah had told him that he had considered delivering a speech to the Arab League in March pledging to recognize Israel if it would pull out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

At first, diplomats paid little heed to Abdullah's conversation with the American columnist. After all, Sharon has stood foursquare against full withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank and especially from East Jerusalem. The crown prince appeared to some to be simply restating the Saudis' long-held position that Israel should abide by Security Council Resolution 242, which in the Arab interpretation requires an Israeli withdrawal from the lands it occupied after the 1967 war. "No government . . . would act on so narrow a formula," said Henry Siegman, a Middle East expert at the Council of Foreign Relations.

Siegman said he phoned a senior aide to Abdullah the day Friedman's column was published to see whether the Saudis were prepared to go further.

"I discovered that there is greater flexibility," he said Tuesday. As Siegman reported in a subsequent op-ed article--written, he said, at the Saudis' explicit urging, and submitted only after Abdullah reviewed the text--the Saudi government is now prepared to recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jewish areas of East Jerusalem, including, crucially, the Western Wall and the rest of the historic Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.

Saudi officials then confirmed the outlines of this more nuanced position in their state-controlled press and in discussions with Powell and other foreign leaders. Adel al-Jubeir, a senior advisor to Abdullah, said Tuesday on CNN that the Saudi proposal is in its essence "very simple: Withdraw from the territories, including Jerusalem, in exchange for normalization."

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.