Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Pressed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Arab leaders agreed this week to relaunch a peace initiative that would offer Israel normal relations with the Arab states. The plan, originally proposed in 2002 but rejected at that time by Israel, calls on Israel to withdraw from all land occupied in the 1967 war, including East Jerusalem, and to find a just solution for the Palestinian refugees who were expelled from Israel in 1948. In a related development in Jerusalem, Rice persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to meet every two weeks to discuss both day-to-day issues and a political horizon.
