"Really, This May be the Time to Pursue a Mideast Peace"
Gregory Levey, The Globe and Mail, November 14, 2006

Now that the U.S. midterms have passed and the Bush presidency has entered its final stage, the only political prize still at stake for the White House is the legacy of George W. Bush. Very few issues seem readily salvageable in terms of legacy any more, but ushering the Middle East closer to peace may be at least feasible - and Middle Eastern peace is exactly the sort of thing on which presidential legacies are made.

Its credibility in the region badly damaged in recent years, though, the United States will not be able to move forward without the aid of its allies and friends, Canada prominently among them. Even if possibilities for Mideast peace may be hard to discern at the moment, they do exist. All it may take is for our leaders to realize what is needed of them, instead of just using the region for cheap political point scoring.

Perhaps the most tantalizing of the chances for peace is the possibility that a revamped version of the 2002 Saudi peace plan will surface in the coming months. There have been numerous signs that the plan - which offers a normalization of relations between Israel and the entire Arab world in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories - may be re-emerging after being seemingly forgotten for several years. It has been repeatedly brought up recently by high-ranking Saudi diplomats and, in late September, the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported that a secret late-night meeting had occurred in Jordan between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and members of the Saudi royal family. When questioned about the alleged meeting on Israeli radio, Mr. Olmert said, "We have decided that, on this subject, I am going to deliver a denial, but you don't have to believe it. On other matters, believe all my denials," and shortly afterward added that he was "impressed" with "statements that are connected to Saudi Arabia - some that have been stated publicly and others as well." More recently, Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz chimed in as well, calling the Saudi plan "a basis for negotiations."

Other states also seem to be working to realize the possibilities that may be implicit in the Saudi plan. Egypt has recently been pressuring Hamas to recognize Israel or to move aside and allow a new government to take Hamas's place in the Palestinian-administered territories. Achieving either would remove one of the major stumbling blocks to progress not just in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, but also in Israel's relations with the wider Arab world.

Qatar seems to be doing its part as well; recently, the Gulf state made the rare move of inviting Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to visit the country during a UN conference. Mr. Livni declined the invitation because Hamas delegates were attending the same conference, a decision that the Israeli paper Haaretz said demonstrated a "significant lack of insight."

Even Syria has been making overtures toward Israel, indicating that it would like to restart negotiations. So far, Israel has rebuffed these attempts, believing that the Syrian leadership is not sincere in its expressed willingness to negotiate in good faith. It is, in fact, reasonable to wonder if the Syrian gestures may just be a delaying tactic, in part designed to gain its Iranian ally the time to realize its nuclear ambitions. Still, there is no harm in Israel at least testing the Syrian waters, and trying to engage in real dialogue. Only with the encouragement and substantive support of the international community, though, might it be courageous enough to do so.

In other areas, however, Israel is already making courageous efforts.

This is the first time that the country has really trusted its security to a foreign force - the enhanced UN contingent now positioned along the Lebanese border after last summer's war. This is no small leap of faith in the Israeli psyche, which is wholly averse to relying on the international community for protection, and is often quite skeptical about the UN's neutrality. How this experiment works in the long run may well help to define the chances for any kind of real peace in the region.

But it is unrealistic to expect Israel or its neighbours to do much with these thin shreds of hope without the real aid of the United States and other Western countries. Canada's support for Israel this past summer did not go unnoticed by the Israeli people or their government, and bought Canada a lot of political capital in Israel. At the same time, Canada continues to enjoy a relatively high level of trust in the Arab world, and is thus now well positioned to foster the nascent dialogue in the region.