On the surface, the Arab League's improved peace initiative offers Israel everything it ever dreamed of — normal relations with an entire region that has long objected to the very existence of the Jewish state, and even the chance to keep some war-won land. But two weeks after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry persuaded Arab leaders to reissue their 2002 offer with new incentives, Israel is maintaining a striking silence, and critics are accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of missing a historic chance. “We are speaking of an opportunity that must be seized to renew the diplomatic process," former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told The Associated Press in a statement. “It's a very important development." When it was first issued in 2002, the initiative was a breakthrough. It countered the Arab League's famous “Three No's" that followed the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria. At a summit in Khartoum, Sudan, the Arab countries passed a resolution saying no peace, recognition or negotiations with Israel. The 2002 initiative, endorsed by the Arab League and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, offered Israel normalized relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from territories captured in 1967. However, it was overshadowed by Israeli-Palestinian fighting and was greeted with skepticism by Israel. Now the initiative has gained new life thanks to interest from Kerry, who has been trying to restart peace talks between Israeli and the Palestinians, frozen since 2008. Palestinians refuse to talk unless Israel stops construction of settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Netanyahu calls for talks with no preconditions. In a significant breakthrough, Kerry last month persuaded the Arab League not only to renew its peace initiative, but to sweeten it by saying the final borders between Israel and a future Palestine could be modified from the 1967 lines through agreed land swaps. This small but significant amendment could open the way for Israel to keep some of its Jewish settlements as well as holy sites in east Jerusalem. Netanyahu's chief peace negotiator, Tzipi Livni, welcomed the gesture as “good news," but the prime minister has said little. In veiled criticism, Netanyahu declared that the conflict with the Palestinians wasn't “territorial," but instead was due to their refusal to recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jews. Other issues besides borders have plagued the negotiations for decades. Palestinians insist on the “right of return" for the descendants of about 700,000 refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948, now estimated at 7 million people. Israel rejects the return of refugees to what is now Israel, saying their home should be the future Palestine. The Arab initiative calls vaguely for a “just solution" to the refugee issue, but negotiations would be difficult. Washingtonpost
