Saudi Middle East Proposal
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah has proposed a Middle East peace plan whereby the Israelis would return to their pre-1967 war borders, Palestinians would have a homeland in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Arab states would all normalize relations with Israel. This sounds like a promising peace plan.
Think again. This is essentially the same plan that has been proposed over the last 20 years and has not yet amounted to anything. What most may overlook in this plan, is that the West Bank and Gaza Strip contain hundreds of Israeli settlements in which 200,000 Israelis live and they are some of the most militant individuals when it comes to giving back these territories. Ariel Sharon's government contains some of the most militant political groups and are unlikely to stay in his government if he indicates that he would be willing to give up the Gaza and West Bank settlements in a peace agreement. Also to be returned would by the Golan heights and Israel doesn't trust the Syrians to not place weapons on the heights overlooking Israel's northern border.
The peace proposal is intended to take pressure off of Yassar Arafat and place in Sharon's lap when he fails to accept this 'new' proposal from the Arab states. The bottomline is that this is Middle East politics as usual, where posturing is more important than substance because neither side is really capable of making the necessary compromises for a peace settlement.
03/01/02 ( 319 )
© Copyright 2000-03 www.mypov.org - All rights reserved.