A week after the Riyadh summit, Israel procrastinates, reads Doaa El-Bey While political analysts and writers are still assessing the outcome of the Riyadh summit -- they have not refrained from hailing its resolutions -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed his wish to participate in a regional conference with all the Arab states to discuss their ideas for reaching Middle East peace. Olmert's initiative was not welcomed neither by many Israelis nor many Arab parties. Those who request the convening of an international peace conference to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict regarded the initiative as too little; others described it as a lie. The Saudi daily Al-Madina described Olmert's comments as another Israeli lie in a series of lies that Tel Aviv tells for either propaganda purposes or to appear as the party that is seeking peace. However, the facts on the ground, especially its attempts to starve the Palestinians through the embargo, show that it is too far away from peace. The newspaper's editorial said it was clear that the Israeli reading of the 2002 Arab peace initiative stops at the word "normalisation" and ignores anything else that calls for an Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied lands including Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights. It disregarded the fact that normalisation was a step dependent on Israeli withdrawal and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. "Olmert's statement shows that he is lying to himself and to others. It is difficult to believe his lie especially because it fell on April Fool's day," the editorial added. Ali Al-Talili warned against pinning much hope on Olmert's initiative for several reasons, chiefly because it came from Olmert who is in a difficult situation after the Lebanon war last summer and its political and military repercussions which have threatened his political future. This is in addition to his popularity which has witnessed a noticeable decline to the extent that some extremists described his initiative as "a dream". Through his initiative, Olmert aimed to recapture at least part of the international confidence he lost, or to ease international, especially European pressure, to lift the embargo on the Palestinians and take tangible steps towards peace. "Arab leaders clearly adopted the Arab initiative as a strategic option for peace in the region. But whoever follows Olmert's statements will realise he is trying to transform the initiative from a framework for peace to a mere draft that could be changed or amended," Al-Talili wrote in the Tunisian daily As-Sabah. Ali Al-Qassim wrote that Israel not only rejected the Arab initiative, but was also trying to circumvent it by proposing to hold a meeting before officially declaring its acceptance of the initiative or even its commitment to peace. He did not regard the Israeli rejection of the initiative or its attempt to empty it from its contents as a surprise because Tel Aviv considered it a threat to its expansionist policies. "If Israel restarted talking about the Arab initiative, it is not because it wants to accept it, but to find in it an escape from the dramatic developments inside Israel. Thus it was one of the tools that could be used to ease the pressure that the Israeli government is facing internally and internationally," Al-Qassim wrote in the Syrian daily Al-Thawra. The outcome of the Riyadh summit and the Arab leaders' clear insistence on adopting the Arab initiative without any amendment was widely praised this week. However, it was regarded as one initial step in a long and arduous road towards peace. Salah Sallam wrote that the summit was one way to regain confidence in ourselves and in the credibility of our leaders. He regarded it as a success because it paved the way for restoring Arab unity lost in the middle of present regional and international conflicts. However, Sallam warned against unfounded optimism as the crises in the Arab world are too complicated to be resolved in one summit. The Riyadh summit resolutions did not tackle the ways and means to resolve the growing crises in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and other places. However it did pave the way for the formation of an Arab vision to deal with these thorny issues and limit regional and international interference in them. "If a thousand-mile trip starts with one step, that step is the Riyadh summit. The following steps will gradually be taken in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and all other Arab states suffering from regional and international conflicts," Sallam wrote in the Lebanese daily Al-Liwaa. However, he questioned whether the Riyadh summit would prove to be the summit of all Arab gatherings and the promising take-off for the next phase in the Middle East. Clovis Maqsoud wrote in the independent United Arab Emirates daily Al-Khaleej that the opening address of the Riyadh summit sent a very clear message from the Arabs to the world: "We have had enough." The summit, according to Maqsoud, produced concrete and realistic resolutions that showed that all the Arabs had adopted a moderate stand. So any US argument about dividing the Arabs into moderates and extremists would indicate mere ignorance of the current situation on the ground and will be rejected. However, he underlined there were still many challenges ahead of Arab diplomacy, mainly adopting the Arab initiative as the final and conclusive option for peace in the region. In order to activate the initiative, Maqsoud suggested that Arab diplomacy should try to persuade UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to drop out of the Quartet in order for the UN to help the Palestinians recapture their rights. "How can the UN be part of the Quartet which boycotted a democratically elected Palestinian government early last year?" he questioned.
