Middle East: A Bold New Plan by the Saudis

Crown Prince Fahd speaks of Israel's right "to live in peace "

In the 2½ years since the Camp David accords were signed by Egypt and Israel, negotiations for a wider Middle East settlement have remained deadlocked.

Now Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Fahd has offered an alternative plan that, for the first time, places the Arab world's richest and most influential nation squarely on the side of a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Fahd stated that Israel could "live in peace" with its Arab neighbors provided it permitted the Palestinian population of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to form an independent state. That condition alone made the proposal unacceptable to the Israeli government, but U.S. and European officials said that they hoped the Fahd initiative might be a first tentative step toward working out some solution to the dangerous impasse in the Middle East.

In an interview with the official Saudi Press Agency, Fahd called for: 1) Israeli withdrawal from all territory that it had occupied since the 1967 war; 2) removal of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and other occupied areas; 3) guarantees of freedom of worship for all religious groups within these areas; 4) recognition of the rights of 2 million Palestinian refugees — from the 1948 war as well as the 1967 war — for repatriation or compensation; 5) U.N. trusteeship over the West Bank and Gaza Strip during a transition period of several months; and 6) establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with the Arab eastern section of Jerusalem as its capital. Such an agreement, Fahd continued, should be guaranteed by the U.N. or by some of its members, presumably meaning the U.S.

More important, the agreement would assure the right of all states in the area to live with each other peacefully.

Differing with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who has staked his repu tation on the success of the Camp David peace process, Fahd branded that plan a failure and called on the U.S. to move on toward some broader form of discussion.

In company with most of the other Arab states, the Saudis had criticized the Camp David talks and condemned the Egyptian President for signing a peace treaty with Israel, which resulted in an agreement for the return of the occupied Sinai to Egyptian control. Fahd's latest remarks seemed to suggest that the Saudis might now be ready to take a more active and aggressive role in the search for peace.

To some extent, Western diplomats believe, the Fahd initiative is an expression of a rivalry of sorts between Saudi Arabia and Egypt for greater U.S. backing. Indeed, Sadat airily dismissed Fahd's proposals as "nothing new," although they obviously were more than that.