Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad (AP)
The entire Arab world has signed on to the 2002 Arab peace initiative, originally proposed by Saudi Arabia and reconfirmed unanimously by the Arab League as recently as March 2007. …
The Arab peace initiative even refines the traditional refugee solution, avoiding direct mention of the "right of return" in favor of a new formulation: an "agreed upon" resolution of the problem. Designed to accommodate Israeli sensitivities, the initiative provides a commitment from the entire Arab world that would render resistance from recalcitrant Palestinian elements such as Hamas difficult if not impossible should actual Israeli agreement be reached to end the occupation. …
The Arab peace incentive, along with Saudi attendance at the conference symbolically representing the Arab League, depend of course on just this: that the conference open a clear, delineated and time-limited negotiating process on all the final status issues, to culminate in the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories equivalent to the 1967 borders. Access the full article>>
