In a recent speech, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has suggested reviving the long-moribund peace plan proposed by Saudi Arabia in conjunction with other Arab states. That 2002 initiative, however, includes an unrestricted right of return to Israel for all 1948 Arab refugees as well as their descendants. Nor does it allow for adjustments of the pre-1967 lines to accommodate Israel’s security or the longstanding Jewish communities on the West Bank, even though such adjustments have been confirmed by UN resolution and in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But the real problem, writes Zalman Shoval, is the lack of interest in peace on the part of Palestinian leadership:
The way toward an independent Palestine for Arafat was a combination of cheating and violence—and for Abbas it is to play the UN card. Peace doesn’t come into it, certainly not if that were to be contingent on concessions on such items as refugees, Jerusalem, borders, etc. Thus for Abbas it isn’t “peace now,” but “state now”—with peace, whatever its contours, later or not at all.
If the Arab peace initiative had been presented, as Jordan’s esteemed foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, suggested at the time, as a straightforward “simple and powerful explanation of the Arab position” and not as an “either-or” dictate, it could perhaps have served as a suitable platform for meaningful negotiations. In its present form, it is not.
Read more on Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Why-President-Sisi-was-right-and-wrong-380492