Prime Minister Ariel Sharon requested that American officials help arrange a meeting with Saudi officials to discuss Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud's peace initiative, government sources said. A range of Israeli leaders said the plan, first reported in the New York Times and which reportedly offers Israel full diplomatic relations with Arab countries in exchange for a withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, warranted serious consideration.

At Sunday's cabinet meeting, Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit suggested that Israel take the initiative and invite the Saudi Crown Prince to Israel. Sharon responded by saying that he had already "taken several steps" in the matter.

Cabinet secretary Gideon Sa'ar today described the Saudi plan as a "positive trend." Sa'ar said Israel's positive reactions to the plan do "not mean that we agree to the demand for a return to the 1967 borders. It's clear that we won't agree to this," he told Army Radio.

President Moshe Katsav said that he was willing to travel to Riyadh to discuss the Saudi plan if he was invited. "I very much hope that if a Saudi ruler will not come to Jerusalem, he will invite the rulers of Israel to Saudi Arabia. We would be happy to go to him," he told reporters. Katsav suggested that the Saudis provide Israeli officials with more details about the plan.

Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres described the Saudi plan as a "fascinating, interesting new opportunity." Peres said what was important about the plan was that "for the first time, Saudi Arabia, which had turned its back on Israel… is proposing to the Arab world normalizing relations with us and recognizing Israel." Peres said Israel should accept the Saudi initiative and reserve the right to negotiate its contents.

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Sunday that Israel "should say 'yes' to the plan, and then afterwards sit down and see how to proceed." Ben-Eliezer said it was important to note that the Saudis did not speak about the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees, and also focused their plan towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict with Syria as well.

Saudi plan discussed, but not yet proposed
The Saudi Arabian peace initiative was first mentioned February 17 in a New York Times column by Thomas Friedman. Friedman interviewed the Saudi Crown Prince, who told him that he had prepared a speech for the upcoming Arab League summit in Beirut, in which he would announce Saudi Arabia's willingness to establish full diplomatic relations, normalize trade and guarantee Israel's security if Israel would fully withdraw from the territories occupied at the end of the 1967 war.

Earlier in February, Friedman had made that exact same sort of proposal in an op-ed column he wrote in the form of a purported letter from President George W. Bush to members of the Arab League. Media analysts speculate that this column may have been the topic of discussion during Friedman's interview of the Crown Prince.

In an op-ed piece published this week in the New York Times, Henry Siegman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, (Friedman is also a CFR fellow), suggested that Saudi officials were flexible on two key issues of Israeli concern. Siegman wrote that the Saudis would be willing to grant Israel sovereignty over the Western Wall and Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, and were open to territorial exchanges in the West Bank.

According to media reports, American officials have warmly accepted the Saudi initiative and hope that the Arab League would adopt it. "The United States has been urging the Saudis to bring the plan to the Arab League summit," Siegman confirmed to the Jerusalem Post, but he added that it was unlikely the Saudis would do this in light of yesterday's cabinet decision restricting PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's movement to Ramallah.

Ha'aretz reported that members of the Bush administration warned Israel not to overestimate the importance of the Saudi initiative, and that efforts should still be primarily directed at reducing violence and terrorism and not at all-inclusive political proposals.

Though the Saudi peace initiative has not yet been formally presented, its existence was acknowledged by Saudi foreign policy adviser Adel al-Jubeir. "The importance of it is that it sends a signal to the Israeli public by telling them that peace with the broader Arab world is possible should they make peace with their neighbors," al-Jubeir said on "Fox News Sunday."

Saudi officials say that most Arab countries support their peace initiative. Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan al-Maashar said in a newspaper interview that the "initiative for the first time provides a diplomatic solution to the Palestinian problem." According to media reports, Morocco, Egypt and a few of the Gulf States have also welcomed the Saudi plan, and even Syria is reportedly not opposed to the initiative.

Palestinian officials said that the Saudi plan offered a "reasonable political process." But Arafat adviser Bassam Abu Sharif said, "The Palestinians no longer trust Sharon after he broke his promise to lift the travel restrictions imposed on Arafat."

For their part, the Saudis continue to speak openly about the proposal. In an interview with Time magazine, Crown Prince Abdullah promised Israel a "warm peace" with its Arab neighbors if it would agree to the plan he presented last week.

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