"The opportunity to have pragmatic partners belonging to the mainstream of our two societies is not open-ended," former Israeli justice minister Yossi Beilin warned before he shook hands with Yasser Abed Rabbo, his Palestinian counterpart in the peace effort.

"If the right steps are not taken, the pictures of the gathering in Geneva might become one of the last glimpses of sanity in our region," he added.

The architects of the Geneva Initiative ended the glitzy launch ceremony in the western Swiss city by urging their respective leaderships to rally around the blueprint.

"This is a simple solution to a complicated conflict, it is the only possible solution," Rabbo added.

About 700 people attended the formal launch of the Initiative at a conference centre near UN headquarters, presided over by Hollywood movie star Richard Dreyfuss and attended by other celebrities and former leaders.

"It's unlikely that we shall ever see a more promising foundation for peace," former US president Jimmy Carter told the audience.

"The only alternative to this initative is sustained and permanent violence," added Carter, who helped broker of the Camp David accords that led to the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

The initiative, drawn up by leading Palestinian and Israeli politicians and intellectuals in secret talks, contains proposals for resolving some of the thorniest problems in the decades-long conflict such as the creation of a Palestinian state and the status of Jerusalem.

It has been rejected outright by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and has won only half-hearted support from the Palestinian Authority.

But the ceremony heard messages of support from world leaders, including praise from British Prime Minister Tony Blair who said the initiative gave hope to Israelis and Palestinians and had opened up an important debate.

"The debate stimulated by this initiative ... can help remind people why sometimes difficult steps in the roadmap are worth taking," Blair said in the message read out by one of his close political allies, Michael Levy.

Blair's reference to the internationally-backed "roadmap" for peace, a plan that has stalled amid continuing violence, contrasted with Israel's claim that the initiative undermined the official focus on the roadmap.

"The Geneva Initiative does not fit into the roadmap, therefore the Israeli government considers the roadmap as the only basis for talks with the Palestinians," Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said in Jerusalem.

The proposals in the initiative include an Israeli withdrawal from much of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in return for the Palestinians waiving the right of return for 3.8 million Palestinian refugees ousted from their homes since the creation of Israel in 1948.

The 50-page document details the creation of a Palestinian state encompassing 97.5 percent of the West Bank with shared sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem, which contains some of the holiest sites in both Judaism and Islam.

Israeli backers played down staunch opposition from Sharon, claiming that a broad range of civil society was present in Geneva to show support for the initiative.

"If the government is not here for the people, then let the people be here for the people," said Abraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli parliament.

The plan has drawn European support and encouragement from US Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as a statement of support issued Monday by 58 former leaders.

In an appeal published in the International Herald Tribune newspaper, the signatories including former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called on Washington and other key players to build on the momentum of the initiative.

US Middle East envoy William Burns welcomed the initiative without actually endorsing it.

"The United States has made very clear that we think that there are useful contributions that a number of these groups have made, positive contributions to the debate, about what final status options might look like," Burns said in Cairo.

But earlier in Jerusalem he said: "The United States does not endorse any of these particular unofficial initiatives."

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Powell might meet with the supporters of the initiative.

President Hosni Mubarak said in Cairo that he supported any initiative "that would lead to peace and stability in this part of the world" while the Arab League played down its importance, saying that the focus should be on signed documents.

The peace plan also appears to have prompted a sudden flurry of diplomatic activity in the Middle East, with Burns in Israel for a series of meetings with officials.

But thousands of Palestinians staged protests in Gaza and the West Bank against the plan, branding it as "treason" and a "black day in the history of the Palestinian people".

The initiative has been rejected by the main Palestinian factions with groups such as Hamas particularly angered by its implicit renunciation of the right of return for Palestinians.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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