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Arab Summit to Revive Mideast Plan
Zionist regime said it would not accept the plan as it currently stood.
The occupation regime`s deputy prime minister Shimon Peres said that Israel refused to accept the initiative as it currently stands, adding negotiations were needed.
"It`s impossible to say: you must take what we offer you as is," Peres told Israeli public radio.
The announcement came a day after the Arab League heads of state adopted a resolution reaffirming their commitment to the Saudi-inspired plan on the first day of their annual summit in the Saudi capital.
The blueprint offers the Israeli occupation full normalization of ties if it withdraws from all land occupied in the 1967 war and allows the creation of a Palestinian state and the return of Palestinian refugees.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said the Arab leaders "reaffirm the commitment of all Arab states" to the initiative as approved at the Beirut summit in 2002 in all its elements.
A final draft resolution calls for a "just solution" to the problem of Palestinian refugees who fled their homes in 1948 but avoids any mention of the phrase "right of return".
Zionist leaders see the plan`s insistence on the right of return of Palestinian refugees as a stumbling block to a settlement.
The Israeli occupation initially rejected the Arab blueprint, but its rulers have recently spoken of it as a starting point for talks.
And as Saudi officials have ruled out more changes in the blueprint, the Israeli occupation has objected to key elements in the plan.
Those elements include the proposed return to 1967 borders, the inclusion of Arab East Al-Quds in a Palestinian state and the return of Palestinian refugees to homes in the Occupied Palestine.
An aide of the occupation`s prime minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday that "we need to take our time studying what has happened at this summit before taking an official position".
"We are studying the text of this initiative in detail to establish if there is anything new, if there are any changes, and when we`ve done that, we will react officially," Olmert`s spokeswoman Miri Eisin told France`s AFP news agency.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal had warned that the occupation should not expect any changes in the plan.
"If Israel refuses (the plan), that means it doesn`t want peace and it places everything back in the hands of fate."
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas warned the occupation Tuesday: "If this initiative is destroyed, I do not believe that a better chance for peace will present itself in the near future."
But Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said: "I don`t expect at all that Israel will accept the peace plan."
Hamas, which heads the Palestinian government, has called on Arab leaders not to compromise on the right of refugees to return to homes lost in the Israeli occupation.
The Riyadh gathering comes after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Arab states to "begin reaching out to Israel" by building on the 2002 plan.
The US however claims that the initiative had been complicated by the formation of a Palestinian unity government including both Hamas and Fatah party of Abbas.
Meanwhile, the opening of the two-day summit was marked by a strident attack by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia against the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of neighboring Iraq.
A White House spokesman swiftly responded with a rare rebuff of the close US ally.
"The United States is in Iraq at the request of the Iraqis and under a United Nations mandate. Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe claimed.
Several world figures, including UN chief Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy envoy Javier Solana, attended the opening session in Riyadh, where security was tight as police blocked roads and military helicopters patrolled the skies.
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has boycotted the summit, saying he was shunning the forum because it would foment Islamic sectarianism and encourage further confrontation with Iran.
Qaddafi said he would not take part "in a summit that splits Islam in two and pits Sunni and Shiite against each other".
Despite strong criticism from Iraq`s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari of "Arab diktat," heads of state agreed to call for amendments to the Iraqi constitution to give more power to the ousted elite of the Saddam regime.
The Saudi monarch also appealed for an end to the "crippling" political crisis in Lebanon, where divisions were highlighted by the presence at the summit of rival delegations.
Saudi-led efforts to break the deadlock have so far failed, but Abdullah held talks on Tuesday with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the first time since relations chilled last year.
Syria will host the next Arab summit in 2008, the heads of state decided.