ISRAEL giving 'serious consideration' to a peace move is nothing new, for limitless peace plans have foundered on the rock of Israeli obduracy. On Sunday, Israel Defence Minister Ehud Barak said he had discussed with prime minister-designate Tzipi Livni a Saudi peace plan that visualised the Arab world's recognition of the Zionist entity if it withdrew from the territories it occupied in 1967. The peace plan was proposed by the late Saudi King Fahd bin Abdel Aziz in 2002. Israel considered the plan for a while and then rejected it. Last year, the Arab League endorsed it, reviving hopes that Israel would this time react positively. Given Israel's track record it would be futile to expect that the Fahd plan will suffer any better fate. Among the peace plans Israel has sabotaged, the Oslo accords stand out. With President Clinton watching, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed the Declaration of Principles with great fanfare at the White House in September 1993. It visualised an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, with a final settlement being in place by April 1999. However, Rabin was murdered, and subsequent Israeli leaders — Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon — wrecked the plan. Sharon, in fact, ordered the reoccupation of those Palestinians areas which Israel had vacated.

Two more peace plans were launched by America. In April 2003, President George Bush unveiled a road map that visualised an independent Palestinian state by 2005. Nothing came of it. Then last year, Israel, America and the Palestinian Authority signed what came to be known as the Annapolis document, which declared that a sovereign Palestinian state would emerge by the end of 2008. Within a week of the signing, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert said he was not bound by the Annapolis timetable. Currently, too, the Turkish-brokered peace talks between Syria and Israel have made no headway, while the peace process with the Palestinian Authority remains frozen. Land-hungry Israel has no intention of quitting the occupied territories because militarily it is invincible and it enjoys America's unqualified support. The 'serious consideration' it is now giving to the Fahd plan will remain just that.