The Saudi plan may be gathering steam. European Union representative Javier Solana, who met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres this week, will arrive in Saudi Arabia today and give its rulers the message that Israel is willing to consider the proposal. Sharon told Solana that he would be willing to meet with any Saudi representative on this matter.
Fatah, the main component of the PLO, rejects the Saudi initiative. Arabicnews.com
(\"www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020223/2002022312.html\") reports that Fatah is against \"...initiatives that give up the territories occupied since 1948... at a time when Palestinian Intifada and resistance are increasing and the \'enemy\' suffers a deep strategic crisis.\" The PLO also complains that the plan \"ignores the right of return for more than five million Palestinian refugees...\" Fatah thus shows that it has no intention of giving up \"the territories occupied since 1948\" - in other words, the entire State of Israel - and the Oslo process dealing with Judea and Samaria is thus shown to be merely a \"first stage\" in the plan to destroy Israel.
The PLO need not worry, however, as both positions apparently lead to the same result. In Jan. 1995, the mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdel Aziz Bin-Baz, ruled that Islamic law does not rule out peace with Israel - \"on condition that it is a temporary peace, until the Moslems build up the [military] strength needed to expel the Jews.\"
Fatah, the main component of the PLO, rejects the Saudi initiative. Arabicnews.com
(\"www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020223/2002022312.html\") reports that Fatah is against \"...initiatives that give up the territories occupied since 1948... at a time when Palestinian Intifada and resistance are increasing and the \'enemy\' suffers a deep strategic crisis.\" The PLO also complains that the plan \"ignores the right of return for more than five million Palestinian refugees...\" Fatah thus shows that it has no intention of giving up \"the territories occupied since 1948\" - in other words, the entire State of Israel - and the Oslo process dealing with Judea and Samaria is thus shown to be merely a \"first stage\" in the plan to destroy Israel.
The PLO need not worry, however, as both positions apparently lead to the same result. In Jan. 1995, the mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdel Aziz Bin-Baz, ruled that Islamic law does not rule out peace with Israel - \"on condition that it is a temporary peace, until the Moslems build up the [military] strength needed to expel the Jews.\"