Saudis pushing Obama for new Mideast plan

Haaretz, here

"The United States expects Israel to make concrete concessions to the Palestinians before U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Cairo on June 4, an American official said during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington this week. 

The cabinet is due to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip this Sunday, and one concession the U.S. would like to see is for Israel to decide at this meeting to ease its restrictions on imports and exports of goods to Gaza. It also wants Israel to ease restrictions on movement in the West Bank. 

The American official said this would ease Obama's efforts to persuade Arab states to begin taking steps toward normalization, without waiting for a full-fledged Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. To Netanyahu's pleasure, Obama favors this idea, recognizing that it would soften Israeli public opinion on the peace process. However, senior Saudi officials have so far rejected outright the idea of gradual normalization, American sources said. 

The Saudis, for their part, have been pressing Obama to present a detailed plan for an Israeli-Palestinian final-status agreement and then urge the parties to begin negotiations on its implementation. ...

One proposal that Netanyahu made, both in his White House meeting with Obama on Monday and in earlier meetings with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan, was that the Arab states amend the Arab peace initiative to make it more attractive to Israel and enable it to serve as a basis for negotiations between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states. In private conversations, however, the Saudis told American officials that they oppose the idea of amending the initiative, and particularly the idea of softening its proposal on the refugees. 

To Netanyahu, the general tenor of the Arab initiative was acceptable, but he was not willing to sign off on all its details. ...

On another issue, Obama told Netanyahu at their meeting on Monday that Washington has no plans to change its policy on Israel's nuclear program, according to an Israeli source. .... Israeli commentators have expressed fear that the U.S. was planning to change this policy, after a mid-level State Department official publicly declared that Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea should all join the NPT. But this comment was actually mere routine, reflecting America's commitment in principle to eventual worldwide nuclear disarmament, and was not aimed specifically at Israel. ...

On Iran, a senior Israeli official said the premier was also pleased with the outcome of the visit: Obama set a deadline - the end of the year - for his proposed dialogue with Iran, and Netanyahu did not promise that Israel would refrain from taking action against Iran on its own. 

On the settlements, no agreements were reached, but the two leaders agreed to set up working groups on this issue, as well as on Iran and normalization with the Arab world. Netanyahu returned to Israel last night. .."