King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia will host a summit March 28-29 bringing together 21 of the 22 Arab kings, presidents, princes and prime ministers in a renewed effort to revive the stalled Middle East peace talks. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi has made it known he would not "waste his time" with such events.

Should some positive initiatives emerge from the labors of the summit, such as an understanding between Palestinians and Israelis, the credit would largely be due to the efforts of two men: Saudi's King Abdullah and his former ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar.

After leaving the embassy, Bandar became more and more involved in behind-the-scene negotiations, making several trips back and forth across the Atlantic, meeting with U.S. officials and, according to an Israeli report, meeting with "a high-ranking Israeli official," presumably, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert himself.

The feeling that something is afoot seems to fit in with the continuous ballet of Arab diplomats and politicians who have traveled to Washington over the last few months. It also partially explains the reason behind Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's sudden urge to undertake more trips to the Middle East in the last six months than she has taken since she was appointed to the post.

So what can one expect from this summit?

For the Saudis, it would be the first time King Abdullah tries openly to present himself as the "elder" of the Arab world and of the Muslim world, too.

Today, countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Israel are working together in an effort to reach a settlement of the crisis affecting the region. In the noticeable absence of an aggressive U.S. participation and lack of U.S. leadership in the quest for peace, it is Saudi Arabia that seems to have stepped up to the plate.

Spearheading this initiative is Prince Bandar. Since resigning his position as this country's top representative to Washington, Bandar has undertaken multiple trips to the United States, as well as to other undisclosed locations, to meet with a wide range of officials, including Israeli officials. Of course, Saudi Arabia denies that any such meetings ever took place. But reports in the Israeli press leave room to believe that there was at least one meeting between Prince Bandar and a high-level Israeli official in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

Bandar, most likely, was acting on instructions from King Abdullah. Maybe the spate of homegrown terrorism that shook Saudi Arabia a couple of years ago has convinced the Saudi monarch -- and rightfully so -- that no lasting peace in the Middle East will ever be possible so long as the Palestinian-Israeli dispute remains unsolved. Indeed, in efforts to recruit more supporters and followers to its cause, al-Qaida has frequently turned to the Palestinian issue as a recruiting poster. As another Middle East leader commented to this reporter some time back, "al-Qaida has hijacked the Palestinian cause."

So keep your eyes and ears tuned to the next Arab summit due to be held in Saudi Arabia March 28-29. King Abdullah will revive what became known as the Arab Peace Initiative, which was presented and endorsed at the 2002 Beirut Arab summit. At the time the idea was instantly rejected by Israel, which reacted by storming Jenin in the West Bank.

Today, rumors circulating ahead of the summit indicate the Saudi king is likely to go a step further than the Arabs did in 2002. Abdullah appears ready to offer Israel not only recognition by all 22 member states of the Arab League, but using his clout as protector of Islam's two holiest sites -- Mecca and Medina -- the king of Saudi Arabia will throw in recognition by all Muslim states as well, in return for peace.

Peace in this instance means that Israel would cede all territory it occupied during the June 1967 war to a Palestinian state, and recognize that state.

So why are the chances of this proposal being accepted this time after it was rejected a few years back?

When the deal was last offered to the Jewish state in 2002, the prime minister of the time, Ariel Sharon, was in a position of strength, riding high in the polls. Today's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is at the lowest rating any Israeli prime minister has ever had, holding the reins of power only with his teeth. His popularity has slipped to a dismal 3 percent.

After last summer's fiasco in Lebanon, when Olmert and his Defense Minister Amir Peretz took the country into a senseless war against Hezbollah, the prime minister badly needs to come up with something that will improve his image. And what better than to be able to offer the country a firm peace deal with the entire Muslim world? If he pulls it off, it can only play in his favor and bring his popularity skyrocketing back up. From a 3rd-percentile position there's not much room to slip further down, whereas he has much to gain in trying to re-climb up the slippery slope of Levantine politics.

Solving the Palestinian-Israeli dispute will not put an end to all the ills facing the Arab/Islamic world. Nor will peace in Palestine/Israel eradicate terrorism overnight. But it will certainly take a big chunk out of it. And if Washington intervenes at the opportune moment, at least to make it appear as though it were pressuring Israel to accept the deal, it would work wonders for America's image in the Arab/Muslim world.

earlier related report
Analysis: Israeli pullback unlikely
Jerusalem (UPI) March 22, 2007 A year and a half after Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip so many problems remained unresolved that analysts believe it unlikely Israel would go for a similar pullback in the West Bank.

In the summer of 2005 soldiers evacuated some 8,000 Gaza Strip settlers. The settlers' homes were destroyed and the military withdrew to the pre-1967 war lines. The military also evacuated settlers from four isolated sites in the northern West Bank.

The evacuation followed a tough campaign that settlers and their supporters ran to prevent the withdrawal. In was the biggest campaign in Israel's history. With the help of public-relations offices, volunteers were in junctions throughout the country distributing orange ribbons that people tied to their cars. They organized mass marches near, and towards, the Gaza Strip.

They failed because most Israelis have all along wanted a separation from the Palestinians, said Professor Tamar Hermann, dean of academic studies at the Open University in Tel Aviv, who conducts monthly public-opinion polls.

The public preceded the government in seeking the break with the Palestinians, she said. Israelis want closed borders that neither people nor goods would cross.

"They always wanted a fence, crossing points, to be annexed to Europe if possible," Hermann added. Even Jews who came from Arab countries did not want to be integrated into the Middle East. That is why 80 percent of the Israelis favor the security barrier running in and around the West Bank, she noted.

Before the disengagement Israelis felt there was no one to talk to on the Palestinian side and that many efforts to stop the intifada have failed. U.S. teams came over, the international community devised a roadmap for peace, the Swiss hosted Israelis and Palestinians who drafted the Geneva Accord -- and all, so far, with no results. That led Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to opt for a unilateral withdrawal.

Hermann's interviews showed that time and again 60 percent of the Israelis wanted a separation, and government officials concluded the protests would not block the evacuation. The authorities could allow youngsters to vent anger and knew that, "When the state and the leaders are determined to do something, nothing will help," Hermann said. Indeed, protests failed and mass marches fizzled out.

The eviction traumatized evacuees. Baruch Kahana, a Hebrew University psychologist, told a conference at Mishkenot Shaananim in Jerusalem Thursday that seven youngsters ended in psychiatric wards; scores of others stayed in their hotel rooms until they were treated for depression. He said he believed hundreds of children more than 7 years old resumed bed-wetting. The number of cancer, heart, diabetic and asthma cases doubled, and he believes people's mental state was the cause.

The settlers had a very strong social cohesion and common ideology. They suffered from Palestinian attacks, and they felt they were suffering for the Jewish nation.

The disengagement shattered the idea. Their groups were split, and the evacuation showed that Israel no longer considered that land important for security. They believed settlements, by their mere presence, established the extent of Israel's control and realized those sites were eventually considered "insignificant."

Asher Cohen, a political science specialist at Bar Ilan University, noted many Israelis have mentally distanced themselves from the West Bank. They do not go there. Voters are no longer loyal to their old parties. Even religious Zionists, who provided the settler movement's backbone, are no longer united. In last year's elections many voted for centrist parties that favored the withdrawal.

According to Hebrew University Professor Yaakov Bar-Siman-Tov, the withdrawal signaled the end of the idea of "land for peace," in which the Arabs provide peace in return for land that Israel cedes. Moreover, whatever reservations Israel has about the pre-1967 war lines, the fact is that when it withdrew from Gaza, it pulled back to those lines.

Bar-Siman-Tov doubted there would be another unilateral disengagement in the near future. Such moves are unique and often end disputes, he said. The United States left Vietnam and the war there ended -- but then an ocean separates the two countries.

Here, "We disengage but still live with our neighbors," he said.

In the past seven years Israel carried out two unilateral withdrawals: from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005. Both did not provide peace.

The Islamic Hamas claimed its fighters forced the Israelis out of Gaza, and Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said he believed the disengagement demonstrated Israel's weakness, Bar Siman-Tov noted.

Hezbollah took the risk of kidnapping two soldiers and triggered a monthlong war.

"The entire strategy of a unilateral disengagement was dealt a serious blow. It was proven, for the second time, that it was ineffective (in producing peace)," he noted. Gazans have continued cross-border attacks.

The government erred in not presenting that withdrawal as a move towards implementing the roadmap for peace or pulling back as a gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Bar-Siman-Tov added.

Now new ideas are needed, he argued.

Bar-Siman-Tov said Israel and Hamas seem to be more interested in conflict management than in conflict resolution. "Israel and Hamas' positions are quite close so perhaps that context could lead to another disengagement," he suggested.

earlier related report
Analysis: Past haunts Palestinian Cabinet
Jerusalem (UPI) March 23 - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was sitting with Israeli journalists Wednesday when an aide brought in a note. Hamas militants had just attacked the home of a Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades commander in the Gaza Strip and killed two people, it said. The casualty toll rose Thursday when a 2-year-old boy died of his wounds.

Fears that clashes between the nationalist Fatah and the Islamic Hamas would deteriorate to civil war prompted Palestinian leaders to go to Mecca and with Saudi prodding agree to form the national unity government. It was sworn in last Saturday following an overwhelming vote of confidence -- 83 Legislative Council members to three.

However, the tensions have not ended. Israel's Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said "a list of controversial issues still remains." These include the future of Hamas' Executive Force, control over other security forces and integrating Hamas into the Palestine Liberation Organization. Friction over these issues "may lead to political tensions and even a renewal of the violence," the report predicted.

Palestinians responding to a public-opinion poll by the Ramallah-based survey group NEC sensed as much.

Questioned whether the crisis between Fatah and Hamas would end, 31 percent of those surveyed said yes, while 69 percent said no.

The new government, headed by Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh, aroused optimism but little enthusiasm, wrote former minister Ghassan Khatib, who is now vice president of Birzeit University in the West Bank. There was hope "the government will maintain internal calm and adhere to the ceasefire between Fatah and Hamas," Khatib wrote.

"The lack of popular enthusiasm, meanwhile, is a result of the very low expectation that the new government can do much to improve the economic, social and political difficulties people have faced in the last seven years," he added on bitterlemons.org.

The Hamas ministers had served in the last Cabinet and failed, while the Fatah ministers "have been chosen from the lesser-known ranks of the party and are not seen as the strongest candidates," he noted.

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report noted that the Hamas ministers, except Haniyeh, are technocrats. "Some of them (are) previously political unknowns, while Fatah ministers are old political hands," it said. The prominent ministers are three independents, it noted.

The foreign minister is Ziad Abu Amr, who earned his Ph.D. in political science and international relations from Georgetown University in Washington. The finance minister is Salam Fayyad, who has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas and served in previous governments where he succeeded in somewhat stabilizing the Palestinian Authority's budget and advanced important reforms; the interior minister, who is responsible for security forces, is Hani Talab al-Qawasmi, a former director of administrative affairs in that ministry who has no experience in internal security. However, Mohammad Dahlan, a Gaza strongman who headed the Preventive Security there, is Abbas' national security adviser.

The need to end chaos and restore security has been uppermost in Palestinian minds, according to the NEC survey. Sixty percent of the respondents said that should be the government's No. 1 priority.

Fewer respondents talked of law enforcement, reviving the economy, improving relations with other countries and making peace with Israel. However, reviving the economy depends on coming to terms with Israel.

The international peace Quartet, comprising the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, Wednesday "reaffirmed" the Palestinian government must be "committed to nonviolence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the road map," or the internationally devised peace plan.

Abbas readily acknowledged the Palestinian government has not accepted those demands. "We compromised. Whoever says the compromise is not a positive step, misunderstands reality," he argued.

For Abbas, the important thing was that Hamas undertook to respect the agreements the PLO signed with Israel and the Saudi peace initiative. That initiative, which the Arab League endorsed with some modifications, offers Israel peace and normalization with all Arab states if it withdraws to the pre-1967 war lines and reaches an agreement on resolving the refugee problem.

Abbas complained the Israelis were making a fuss over the fact the new government said it would "respect" previous agreements rather than commit itself to abide by them. "Respecting is more important," he said.

In outlining the government's program, Haniyeh talked of establishing an independent Palestinian state "on the territories that were occupied in 1967." That means a state beside -- not instead -- of Israel. Abbas has been authorized to negotiate with Israel.

However, the government maintained, "Resistance in all its forms ... is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people."

That, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center analysis said, legitimized "the continuation of all forms of terrorism against Israel (including suicide bombing attacks within Israel). ... That is in full accord with Hamas' basic preference for terrorism, although it does not reject a temporary lull in the fighting."

Moreover, in talking of a Palestinian state on the lands conquered in 1967, the program "does not state that the establishment of such a state is the final Palestinian demand. A Palestinian or Muslim Arab reader will understand that the arrangement is only temporary," the analysis said.

For the time being there is no Quartet decision to resume aid to the Palestinian government, though large sums are channeled through Abbas. Israel is still holding on to taxes and customs it levied on the Palestinian Authority's behalf, and Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouthi said that amounts to $500 million.

And yet, the boycott of that government is cracking, and there are renewed efforts to advance a peace process.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are due in the coming days and are scheduled to meet Abbas.

Professor Ali Jarbawi of Birzeit University's political science department noted on bitterlemons.org that the United States' Arab allies have underscored the "necessity to resolve the Palestinian issue" and that "the existence of a Palestinian national unity government and internal Palestinian harmony reinforces and strengthens this trend."

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