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Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal. (Reuters)
Last update - 18:03 20/01/2008
Saudi prince: If Israel quits Arab land, it could join Arab world
By Reuters
Tags: Arab world 

A senior Saudi royal has offered Israel a vision of broad cooperation with the Arab world and people-to-people contacts if it signs a peace treaty and withdraws from all occupied Arab territories.

In an interview with Reuters, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former ambassador to the United States and Britain and adviser to King Abdullah, said Israel and the Arabs could cooperate in many areas including water, agriculture, science and education.

Asked what message he wanted to send to the Israeli public, he said:
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"The Arab world, by the Arab peace initiative, has crossed the Rubicon from hostility towards Israel to peace with Israel and has extended the hand of peace to Israel, and we await the Israelis picking up our hand and joining us in what inevitably will be beneficial for Israel and for the Arab world."

The 22-nation Arab League revived at a Riyadh summit last year a Saudi peace plan first adopted in 2002 offering Israel full normalization of relations in return for full withdrawal from occupied Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese land.

Israel shunned the offer then, at the height of a violent Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But it has expressed more interest since the United States launched a new drive for Israeli-Palestinian peace at Annapolis, Maryland, last November, aiming for an agreement this year.

Prince Turki, who was previously head of Saudi intelligence, said that if Israel accepted the Arab League plan and signed a comprehensive peace, "one can imagine the integration of Israel into the Arab geographical entity."

"One can imagine not just economic, political and diplomatic relations between Arabs and Israelis but also issues of education, scientific research, combating mutual threats to the inhabitants of this vast geographic area," he said.

'Arab Jews'

His comments, on the sidelines of a conference on the Middle East and Europe staged by Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation think-tank, were some of the most far-reaching addressed to Israelis by a senior figure from Saudi Arabia.

The desert kingdom, home to Islam's holiest shrines, has no official relations with Israel, although both are key allies of the United States in the region.

"Exchange visits by people of both Israel and the rest of the Arab countries would take place," Prince Turki said.

"We will start thinking of Israelis as Arab Jews rather than
simply as Israelis," he said, noting that many Arabs historically saw Israel as a European entity imposed on Arab land after World War Two.

Prince Turki, brother of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, holds no official position now but heads the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh.

He said Israel could expect some benefits on the way to signing a treaty and making a full withdrawal, noting that after the 1993 Oslo interim accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization, regional cooperation had begun and Israel had achieved representation in several Arab states.

Those Israeli advances were reversed after the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada in 2000.

Israel was wary of the Arab League plan partly because it would entail handing back the Golan Heights captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, as well as redivision.

But an Israeli participant at the conference, Yossi Alpher, co-editor of the Bitter Lemons Israeli-Palestinian Web site and a former senior intelligence official, welcomed the comments.

"I was delighted to hear Prince Turki's description of the comprehensive nature of normalization as he envisages it within the framework of the Arab peace initiative," Alpher said.

"His remarks should encourage us Israelis and Arabs to deepen and broaden the discussion of ways to reach a comprehensive peace, implement the Arab peace initiative and reach the kind of cooperation that his highness described."

Alpher said he hoped that once there was a comprehensive peace, Israel's Arab neighbours would accept Israelis "as Jewish people living a sovereign life in our historic homeland" and not as "Arab Jews" or "European Jews"
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  1.   "JOIN the Arab world." They kill more of each other than 13:12  |  PETER SM 20/01/08
  2.   Israel`s Gov. on the brink of dissolving Israel in exchange for 13:13  |  Absolute Sweden 20/01/08
  3.   No thank you Saudi Prince, better to stay with civilized world 13:40  |  Genuine Tosefta 20/01/08
  4.   Sounds sensible,except the Arab world should not blithely sign 13:44  |  lakshmi 20/01/08
  5.   Response to Saudi Prince 13:47  |  Moshe 20/01/08
  6.   We have to look at the options 13:48  |  Joseph 20/01/08
  7.   Let`s move forward 13:51  |  Motic 20/01/08
  8.   Saudi Arabian price 13:52  |  Mordecai Ben Natan 20/01/08
  9.   What Palestinian land? 13:53  |  Robert 20/01/08
  10.   From the moron who painted pubic hair on his lawn statues in LA 13:54  |  Dr. L. Brnd 20/01/08
  11.   "occupied Arab territories" 13:56  |  Judith, Haifa 20/01/08
  12.   Have things changed 13:57  |  jackie 20/01/08
  13.   Real Peace will benefit Arabs much more than Israel 13:59  |  Genuine Tosefta 20/01/08
  14.   arab jews? 14:03  |  ron 20/01/08
  15.   Arab league plan 2 states both occupied by Pals 14:04  |  PETER SM 20/01/08
  16.   killing jews #1 14:19  |  rico 20/01/08
  17.   good idea -we must join the arab league- but no right of return 14:20  |  Michelle 20/01/08
  18.   now if israel was interested in the long term? 14:21  |  eric 20/01/08
  19.   AND I SAY YES TO 14:36  |  dovale 20/01/08
  20.   Right-wing jewry showing their colors 14:38  |  Kris 20/01/08
  21.   GENUINE TOSEPHTA. 14:40  |  DANNY. 20/01/08
  22.   Israel will not have a future with the Left & 14:43  |  Akram Zekaria 20/01/08
  23.   TO NO 4 LAKSHMI 14:44  |  DANNY. 20/01/08
  24.   jewish infadels 14:54  |  James 20/01/08
  25.   what r we getting? that they will stop killing us? 15:01  |  John 20/01/08
  26.   Oh, and another thing 15:03  |  Judith, Haifa 20/01/08
  27.   yes, lakshmi..it appears that... 15:04  |  Yadu 20/01/08
  28.   if israel quits Arab lands..... 15:05  |  thomas 20/01/08
  29.   Lets do it. Let`s fall in love 15:06  |  American Jew 20/01/08
  30.   LAKSHMI AND BLITHENESS 15:08  |  Brant 20/01/08
  31.   Arabs Jews? 15:15  |  Frank 20/01/08
  32.   NOO WAY, I WON`T LET THAT TO HAPPEN 15:21  |  indrajaya 20/01/08
  33.   Land For Peace Backfire 15:23  |  juniper 20/01/08
  34.   Artifacts belonging to Israel 15:23  |  arty 20/01/08
  35.   prince of saudi arabia 15:32  |  r. edberg 20/01/08
  36.   Saudi Priceless 15:32  |  Princess 20/01/08
  37.   Saudi Prince you have all the money in world to solve problem 15:33  |  Genuine Tosefta 20/01/08
  38.   Very well INDRARAT, stay in your hole without food and water 15:35  |  Genuine Tosefta 20/01/08
  39.   I shall begin to take this princ`s words seriously when he also 15:35  |  Avihu 20/01/08
  40.   NO to Wahhabhist prince crap 15:35  |  Brod 20/01/08
  41.   The duplicity of this Wahabi supremacist is breathtaking 15:38  |  A Jew 20/01/08
  42.   Respect him and suspect him 15:42  |  Sam 20/01/08
  43.   It makes it a little difficult to join Arab World 15:45  |  Jon 20/01/08
  44.   RESPONSE TO #20 15:48  |  Barry 20/01/08
  45.   Only fools wants tyo be `part of the Arab world`. 15:50  |  Akram Zekaria 20/01/08
  46.   17 Michelle,the Geneva Accord is a fraudulent attempt to cheat 15:52  |  lakshmi 20/01/08
  47.   Mordecai Ben Natan 15:54  |  sam 20/01/08
  48.   for them liberal thinking for everyone else short of the mark! 15:58  |  r 20/01/08
  49.   Israel is racist towards Arabs, I doubt anything comes of this... 15:59  |  POP 20/01/08
  50.   Let`s do it, let`s fall in love? 16:06  |  Sigmund Freud 20/01/08
  51.   Israelis do not want peace 16:09  |  cherif 20/01/08
  52.   The WICKED LIE of Occupation. Return STOLEN Jewish Land! 16:14  |  Linda Rivera 20/01/08
  53.   What a Complement! to join the Arab World....... 16:16  |  Dagma 20/01/08
  54.   Would Jews change G-D´s Word for the Arabs´ friendship? 16:17  |  AliciaYasmeen 20/01/08
  55.   forget it prince... 16:26  |  ravi 20/01/08
  56.   How to interprete Prince Turkis statement...??? 16:29  |  Swiss (Dino) 20/01/08
  57.   Words,Words ... 16:30  |  Dre 20/01/08
  58.   Havent`s Pals suffered enough 16:32  |  Skeptic 20/01/08
  59.   Thre murder want Israel surender... 16:39  |  george 20/01/08
  60.   Israeli objections on Land for Peace 16:40  |  Chris Linthwaite 20/01/08
  61.   Avihu, 39, you got it right. No need to trust people 16:43  |  Roger 20/01/08
  62.   Never believe an Araaab !! 16:43  |  John Fellows 20/01/08
  63.   Jew-HATERS WICKEDLY Ignore Justice for One Million JEWISH REFUGEE 16:46  |  Linda Rivera 20/01/08
  64.   Prince Turki al-Faisal 16:47  |  Brazilian Jew 20/01/08
  65.   #50 FREUD: we love ourselves too much to self-destruct 16:49  |  AliciaYasmeen 20/01/08
  66.   We are not part of the Arab world! 16:51  |  Avi Yerushalmi 20/01/08
  67.   before WE BECOME ARABS, please first you BECOME ISRAELIS 16:52  |  amir 20/01/08
  68.   58### free electionns, free press equal rights 16:53  |  ramachandran nair 20/01/08
  69.   Jew-HATERS DECEIVE for Expansionist Islam. Already ARAB Pal State 16:58  |  Linda Rivera 20/01/08
  70.   #60 CHRIS: Israel has given "land for terrorism" 17:02  |  AliciaYasmeen