Land for Peace Is a Losing Trade

by Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

LA Times
March 7, 2002

Frank J. Gaffney Jr., who held senior positions in the Reagan
Defense Department, is president of the Center for Security 
Policy in Washington.

In the past week, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince 
Abdullah, has received kudos in Washington, Arab capitals and 
diplomatic circles around the world for what is characterized 
as a "new peace initiative" to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian 
conflict. Unfortunately, this characterization is so wildly 
inaccurate as to appear a deliberate fraud.

The so-called Abdullah plan--Arabs would normalize relations 
with Israel in exchange for the Jewish state surrendering the 
territory seized after 1967's Six-Day War--is not "new" in 
any meaningful sense.

The idea of Israel giving up the land it conquered in the 
course of successive wars waged against it in exchange for a 
genuine peace with the Arabs has been around at least since 
the last of those wars ended in 1973. Various U.N. resolutions, 
numerous shuttle diplomacy missions and the Oslo process have 
all been predicated on the land-for-peace proposition. Time
after time, Israel has agreed to territorial concessions. 
The resulting dismal experience with each of these ventures 
has, however, made most Israelis reluctant to buy into such 
a shopworn idea yet again. Even if the Abdullah plan were a 
genuinely new concept, it would not be conducive to a lasting 
peace. Over the past 30 years, Israeli governments of the right
and left have recognized that areas of the West Bank have been 
essential to persuading the Arabs that the "war option" is 
foreclosed. Should strategic Israeli positions on the high 
ground above the Jordan Valley, many of which are secured by 
settlements and military outposts, be surrendered, the Arabs' 
calculus surely would change.

And despite the interest expressed by President Bush this week, 
the Abdullah plan cannot accurately be called an "initiative" 
either. The Saudi king-in-waiting apparently has not decided 
to formally introduce his plan at an upcoming Arab League summit. 
There also have been differing reports of the plan's particulars.

The real impetus behind the Abdullah plan seems to be a cynical 
bid to divert increasingly critical American attention from the 
Saudi kingdom's double game. The Saudis have been portrayed as 
one of the United States' most reliable allies in the region. 
At the same time, the royal family has patronized Wahhabism, 
the virulently radical strain of Islam that has brought the 
world Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist cells, most
of the Sept. 11 hijackers and a worldwide network of madrasas, 
or religious schools, busily indoctrinating young Muslims to 
hate and attack Western infidels. It also has become clear 
that Saudi Arabia is perfectly willing from time to time to 
increase oil prices at the expense of world economies and to
impose restrictions on U.S. use of Saudi bases.

In the months since Sept. 11, a growing chorus on Capitol Hill, 
in the press and even in some quarters of the Bush administration, 
has shown that American patience with the Saudis is wearing 
thin. One suspects that Abdullah saw the need for a "charm 
offensive" in the form of a new peace initiative for the 
Middle East.

To be sure, Israel has no good options at the moment. The same 
applies to the U.S., as one of Israel's few friends and its 
principal ally. Among the worst of the available options, 
though, would be for either Israel or the U.S. to embrace a 
warmed-over--and thoroughly discredited--effort to strip the
Jewish state of land it requires for its own defense.

There can be no guarantees that despotically governed Arab
states--especially Saudi Arabia--would live up to their part 
of the bargain any more than they have in the past. Even if 
today's rulers promise to do so, their successors cannot be 
relied upon to follow suit.

There is much that Saudi Arabia can and should do, from opening 
up its bases to a needed U.S.-led effort to end Saddam Hussein's 
misrule, to shutting down its madrasas, to providing humanitarian 
relief and job opportunities to Palestinians whom their Arab 
brothers see fit to keep rotting in refugee centers.

As far as the Abdullah plan goes, though, the American and Israeli
response should be the same: "Thanks, but no, thanks."