Singer/songwriter Neil Sedaka composed a song entitled “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.” Within the context of the Middle East, there are no truer words. The 35 years’ experience since 1967’s Six Day War has demonstrated the near impossibility of Israelis and Palestinians living together.

The now moribund Oslo process was intended to facilitate the divorce in civil fashion. The Camp David and Taba meetings came tantalizingly close to establishing a Palestinian state. Unhappily, the failure of Palestinian leadership to follow through was accompanied by Yassir Arafat’s cynical decision in late September of 2000—revealed by Palestinian communications chief Imad el-Falouji—to initiate this latest round of violence. All this, an effort to gain sympathy by sending young Palestinians to attack Israeli forces with stones for the television cameras—and Molotov cocktails and snipers beyond camera range.

Then last week Arab leaders met in Beirut where they endorsed a Saudi “peace plan.” At the same time, Palestinian suicide terrorists were wrecking further death of Israeli innocents. In this context, how should we view the Saudi initiative?

The events of September 11th have further served to complicate the Israeli/Palestinian issue. Fifteen of the nineteen suicide highjackers were Saudi citizens. Osama Bin Laden, whose Al Quaeda organization implemented those tragedies, is a Saudi. Convincing evidence indicates that Saudi Arabia supported—and may continue to support—Bin Laden and his terrorists.

It is in this context, and the ensuing disfavor and distrust in which the Saudis are viewed by American public opinion, that we should view the Saudis’ proposals. In an interview with New York Times correspondent Tom Friedman, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah offered recognition of Israel by the entire Arab world. Abdullah’s “comprehensive settlement” would be in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from all territories captured in 1967. The proposals are, however, short on detail. Since it was presented as a package, there are many questions about specifics.

The so-called “comprehensive” proposal that Abdullah puts forward is a set of “non-negotiable” demands by another name, an all-or-nothing setup. Here’s how:

The Madrid conference of 1991 established the process of bilateral negotiations between Israel and each of its Arab neighbors, separately and individually. Indeed, wherever there have been successful arrangements between Israel and Arab countries, those have been by direct bilateral negotiations. Such were the agreements reached with Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and even with the Palestinian Authority.

The Madrid protocols also called for normalizing relations between Israel and its neighbors in tandem with territorial agreement. The Abdullah plan apparently calls for establishment of relations only after territorial withdrawals. In the land-for-peace equation, land and peace are equal variables in which diplomatic relations and territorial compromise are simultaneous, not serial. Given the Palestinians’ escalation of terror, this becomes even more crucial.

The Abdullah proposals absolve Yassir Arafat of any responsibility to negotiate the Palestinian relationship with Israel. Indeed, Arafat has failed to meet many of his Oslo obligations including security cooperation and ending incitement. The Mitchell and Tenet proposals have not yet been activated.

The only fundamentals with which all parties to the Mideast conflict seem to agree are United Nations Resolution 242 of 1967, and 338 of 1973, which merely reiterates 242. And even here, the Arab world has tried to deny the original intent of Resolution 242. That Resolution does not require an Israeli withdrawal from “the territories” or “all territories.” It merely calls for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories…”

At the same time it calls for “termination of all…states of belligerency and respect for…the sovereignty…of every State in the area” and a guarantee of “the territorial inviolability…of every State in the area.”

Seen in the context of the only agreements that all the Mideast protagonists together recognize, the Abdullah proposals are not only non-starters. They are steps backwards. The only optimism to be drawn from this Saudi public-relations ploy is that top Saudi leadership is now on record—if only symbolically—in calling for recognition of Israel.

But even this inference of optimism is doubtful unless the Saudis are willing to expend serious political capital within the Arab world. And it will all come to naught if they continue to fund terrorism.

April 8, 2002