Does the Obama Administration Have a Peace Plan in the Works?

Jacky Hugi in Ma'ariv:

In slightly less than three weeks, US President Obama will present his vision for the Middle East in a speech to the Muslim world that he will give in Egypt. Meanwhile, everyone is busy guessing exactly what this vision entails. The widely-circulated London based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper ran an in-depth report that lays out Obama's peace initiative, as learned by high-ranking Palestinian officials.

According to the report, US President Barack Obama conceived the plan together with King Abdullah II of Jordan during their meeting at the White House. The initiative, which has not received official approval from anyone as of now, does not contradict the Arab initiative in any significant way, but rather gives it content and provides a great deal of detail that it does not contain. According to the report, the source of the new plan stems from the reservations that Israel and the United States expressed concerning the Arab initiative, which is too general and tough and deals only with "full peace in exchange for the full territories."

The Abdullah-Obama initiative stipulates that a demilitarized Palestinian state will be established with East Jerusalem as its capital. The problem of borders would be solved by a territorial exchange. Jerusalem's Old City would be declared an international area, and the UN flag would fly over it. The right of return, one of the major obstacles in future negotiations, would be solved by granting the refugees citizenship in the lands of their exile, while at the same time granting the right of return to land inside the PA state.

In its report, the newspaper wrote that during their meeting, the American president asked his counterpart, the king of Jordan, to work to solidify the peace plan, which would clarify the gray areas in the Arab peace initiative, which is based on Saudi Arabian peace plan. The morning after they returned to Amman, the king of Saudi Arabia took off and raised the American request before King Abdullah bin Abd el-Aziz.

After several days, he also met with the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen, and spoke with him about the initiative.

Approximately another day later, the king gave Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem an update and afterwards was the guest of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"The new initiative will set a timetable for the normalization of Arab relations with Israel and the solution to the refugee problem, since they will not be permitted to return to the Palestinian lands that were occupied in 1948," Palestinian sources said, "because this threatens Israel's future according to the Americans' view."

 As mentioned, the Arab peace initiative is the term for the official joint proposal of all the Arab countries, which was presented to Israel at the Beirut summit in 2002. The initiative stipulates that Israel shall return all the occupied territories (in Palestinian, the Golan Heights and Shaba Farms on the northern border) and allow the establishment of an independent Palestinian state whose capital would be Jerusalem. It also stipulates that the refugee problem would be solved by agreement, meaning that nothing would be imposed upon Israel. In exchange, Israel would receive full peace and normal relations with its neighbors.

Israel Radio:

Abu Mazen's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh told Israel Radio: we hope that in the meeting between Abu Mazen and President Obama in Washington next Thursday we will be shown, on general outlines, how the US administration plans to resolve the conflict in the region. He refused to relate to the details of the plan.  Saeb Erekat told Israel Radio: nobody consulted us and the US administration has not updated us on any plan.