By Bernhard Zand in Dammam, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah says Arab leaders must also take blame for problems in the Middle East
Back in March 2002, Saddam Hussein was still ruling in Baghdad, and Yasser Arafat was sitting trapped in his headquarters in Ramallah, cornered by Ariel Sharon. Palestinian suicide bombers had killed 20 Israeli civilians in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the span of just a few weeks. The Israelis were winning one Pyrrhic victory after another in the West Bank and Gaza -- the situation in the Middle East had reached yet another low point.
Then Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah flew to Beirut for the Arab summit, replacing his ailing brother, King Fahd. In the midst of the crisis, he presented a peace plan: If Israel withdrew to its 1967 borders, acknowledged the right of return to Palestinian refugees and allowed for the creation of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, then the Arab world would normalize its relations with the Jewish state. It offered an enticing prospect: oranges from a kibbutz for sale in a Damascus market; Israeli tourists in the shopping malls of Dubai; Saudi Arabia’s green flag flying on the roof of a Jerusalem embassy.
The world, however, was still in shock following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. A peace plan from Saudi Arabia of all places -- Osama bin Laden’s country of birth, and that of 15 of the 19 attackers? Israel and the West certainly listened to the proposal -- only they didn’t believe in it. Condoleeza Rice, then the United States' National Security Advisor, called it "extremely important" but added that "every element of it may not be workable" and some would have to be negotiated first. The Israeli and the Western press viewed the proposal as well intentioned but unlikely to be realized anytime soon.
"The real blame should fall on us -- we the leaders of the Arab nations"
Last week, the 22 government leaders of the Arab League renewed their commitment to the Beirut proposal. First, however, Abdullah, who has since become the king of Saudi Arabia, gave them a telling-off the likes of which has never been heard before at an Arab summit. He mentioned the bloodshed in occupied Iraq, the political deadlock in Lebanon, the "Arab meekness" in Sudan and the seemingly endless series of civil wars in Somalia. "The real blame should fall on us -- we the leaders of the Arab nations," he said.
Of course, the Arabs are not the only ones to have messed up during the five years since the Beirut proposal. The Bush administration began a war in Iraq that has opened the "gates of hell," just as Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa predicted. Israel launched a military campaign in 2006 that Vice-Premier Shimon Peres has since described as a "mistake" -- and which has made Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a popular Arab hero. And the Europeans are constantly torn between their trans-Atlantic allegiances and their desire to act on their own account -- with the result that they are still struggling to develop a coherent Middle East strategy.
Almost everyone has suffered setbacks during the past five years -- with the exception of men like Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose self-confidence has grown so out of proportion that one would like to see a wise mullah to bring him back down to earth sometime soon.
An opportunity not to be missed
In fact, the widespread concern over Iran’s nuclear program represents an opportunity for the Middle East. The interests of the Arabs, the Israelis, the Europeans and the United States have rarely coincided as perfectly as they do today. It’s an opportunity not to be missed.
The other auspicious turn of events is that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has discovered a new brand of pan-Arabism in his old age. Other Arab leaders may have been more stirring and visionary, but few have made as well-timed an appearance on the political stage as Abdullah. He’s old enough to speak with authority to younger men like Syria’s President Bashar Assad. He has enough influence to make quarelling political factions in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon sit down at the table together. He carries sufficient economic weight for the United States to have to take him seriously. And he’s wise enough to continue speaking with the Iranians -- without antagonizing them from the outset.
Last week, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggested Abdullah should follow the example of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who traveled to Jerusalem in a gesture of peace and reconciliation. But anyone familiar with the self-image of an 83-year-old Arab monarch realizes that it will have to be the other way round: The Israelis should travel to Riyadh, and the West -- including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is visiting the Middle East -- should encourage them. It will probably just be one more attempt to find a solution to the Middle East conflict -- but it will be a long time before a better opportunity presents itself.
It’s a good sign that Abdullah’s nephew, Prince Bandar, has met with the Israelis behind the scenes before, and that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert now believes the Saudi Arabian peace plan is a "revolutionary development" -- even if Israel completely ignored an identical document five years ago.
"You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want," former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumseld once said. His statement could easily be paraphrased to say: "You make peace with the enemies you have, not with those you want."
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