[Ha'aretz] Oded Eran - The bait offered to Israel in the Arab peace initiative of 2002 is an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict and "normal relations." King Abdullah of Jordan pledged to Israel that it would be welcomed with open arms by the 57 Muslim and Arab countries. Nonetheless, the two precedents set by the peace agreements Israel signed with Egypt and Jordan are not encouraging with respect to "normal relations." Dozens of concessions, memoranda of understanding, and addenda about every aspect of relations have not kept those ties from becoming thin and barren. Egyptian civilian society, including its elites, continued to boycott Israel, not just because a solution has yet to be found to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These are not the ties for which we had hoped. The writer is the head of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
2009-05-21 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive