December 2, 2003	Tuesday	Shawwal 7, 1424

GENEVA, Dec 1: Israeli opposition politicians and prominent Palestinians on Monday launched an alternative Middle East peace plan that was hailed as the most “promising” basis for resolving the issue.

About 700 people attended the glitzy ceremony marking the formal launch of the Geneva Initiative, presided over by Hollywood movie star Richard Dreyfuss and attended by other celebrities and former leaders.

“It’s unlikely that we shall ever see a more promising foundation for peace,” former US president Jimmy Carter said as the public ceremony got under way at a conference centre near UN headquarters.

“The only alternative to this initiative is sustained and permanent violence,” he added.

The initiative, drawn up in great secrecy by leading Palestinian and Israeli politicians and intellectuals, contains proposals for resolving some of the thorniest problems in the decades-long conflict, eg the creation of a Palestinian state and the status of Israeli-occupied Al Quds.

It has been rejected outright by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who denounced it as “dangerous”, and has won only half-hearted support from the Palestinian Authority.

But the ceremony also heard messages of international support, including praise from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said the initiative had opened up an important debate among Israelis and Palestinians.

“The initiative we are launching today gives them a chance to look beyond current differences to what might be achieved with the goodwill of both sides,” Mr Blair said in the message read out by one of his close political allies, Michael Levy.

“The debate stimulated by this initiative ... can help remind people why sometimes difficult steps in the roadmap are worth taking,” he added, referring to the internationally-backed roadmap, which has floundered amid continuing violence.

Israel had earlier reiterated its criticism of the blueprint, saying instead that it undermined the current focus on the roadmap.

“The Geneva Initiative does not fit into the roadmap, therefore the Israeli government considers the roadmap as the only basis for talks with the Palestinians,” Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said.

The proposals in the initiative include an Israeli withdrawal from much of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in return for the Palestinians waiving the right of return for 3.8 million Palestinian refugees ousted from their homes since the creation of Israel in 1948.

The 50-page document details the creation of a Palestinian state encompassing 97.5 per cent of the West Bank with shared sovereignty over the city of Al Quds.

Former Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, who along with ex-Israeli justice minister Yossi Beilin, was among the main architects of the plan, said that it was “the first step in a long march” towards peace.—AFP