ARAB AFFAIRS: May 10 - Arab Team To Discuss Peace In Israel.

Pres Hosni Mubarak meets with Israel's FM, Tzipi Livni, and agrees that a team of Arab officials will soon visit Israel to discuss a peace proposal initiated by Saudi Arabia and endorsed by all members of the Arab League. Livni's meetings in Egypt represented the first high-level talks between officials from Arab capitals and Israel since the Arab League reaffirmed its support in March for an initiative first approved in 2002. The initiative sets out a set of principles that would give Israel full recognition and normal relations with its Arab neighbours in return for its withdrawal to 1967 borders and creation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. The proposal also calls for "an agreed, just solution" to the issue of Palestinian refugees. The meetings in Cairo were exclusive to the Arab League initiative. Livni also spoke to Mubarak about the security situation in the Gaza Strip and "the problems of growing Hamas military capabilities and the continual firing" of rockets into Israel, according to a statement issued by the Israeli Foreign Ministry Bureau. After meeting with Mubarak, Livni had additional talks with the FM of Egypt, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, and the FM of Jordan, Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib. Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel and have served as the official diplomatic bridge to other Arab capitals. As events in the region have become more turbulent, there have been some back-channel talks between Arab capitals, including Saudi Arabia, and Israel. This latest set of talks was greeted in Cairo as an incremental step in a process regional analysts said they believed had been undermined by the political crisis in Israel. Ehud Olmert, the PM, has barely hung onto his job after being excoriated by a committee that reviewed Israel's prosecution of the war with Hizbullah and Lebanon last summer. "There is a problem now", said Emad Gad, editor of Israeli Digest Magazine, published by Egypt's premier research center in Cairo, the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "The initiative has very clear words, and it doesn't even demand the right of return but refers to resolving the issue of the refugees, so there is room to talk. "But you have an Israeli government that is in a very precarious position". The continuing efforts to discuss the Arab League plan reflect a sense among Arab officials in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia that the most important step toward helping to stabilise a region that is increasingly volatile - and to try to counter the growing support for more radical Islamist organisations, like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas - is to pursue a settlement to the Palestinian-Israel crisis. Israel initially, in 2002, rejected the Arab initiative, but it has recently yielded to pressure from Washington to discuss the plan. For its part, Washington has yielded to pressure from Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to try to restart the stalled peace efforts. There has been little public expression of optimism over the outcome of the latest effort, though officials have said they are committed to trying to keep the process moving. "It's not a big step", said Adnan Abu-Odeh, a former adviser to King Hussain of Jordan. "It's a good step. It is one step forward, but not enough to make me believe that this is a prelude to a peaceful settlement, because the other side has not and will not respond the way we want or expect it to respond. And let's wait and see".