World leaders back 'Geneva' Mideast peace plan

11.45am

GENEVA - World leaders past and present voiced firm support on Monday for an unofficial Middle East peace plan shaped by regional "doves" but denounced as treason by both Israeli officials and Palestinian militants.

As its authors, self-proclaimed moderates from both sides of Palestinian-Israeli divide, launched the plan at a ceremony in Geneva, senior figures around the globe called it a ray of hope in one of the most intractable international conflicts.

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken far too great a toll already. Both peoples have paid dearly in lives and livelihood in a war which both are losing," declared a statement from 58 former presidents, prime ministers and UN officials.

Hailed at the two-hour ceremony by former US President Jimmy Carter as offering an end to bloodshed, the plan also won messages of support from King Hassan III of Morocco, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Bill Clinton, US president from 1993 to 2001.

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey dubbed it "a little light in the darkness."

At least 2,241 Palestinians and 836 Israelis have been killed since the start of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli military occupation in September 2000.

But underlining the difficulties ahead, thousands of Palestinians protested against the blueprint in refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, calling it a "sell-out" and branding its Palestinian supporters "traitors".

The "Geneva Initiative" was co-authored by former Israeli government minister Yossi Beilin, an architect of the now almost defunct 1993 Oslo peace accords, and former Palestinian minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, and negotiated in secret over two years.

It goes further than Oslo by mandating the removal of most Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas and splitting Jerusalem, occupied in 1967 but annexed unilaterally later by Israel, into the capitals of Israel and a new Palestinian state.

Its Palestinian negotiators accepted wording waiving the claims of millions of people to return to lands in Israel from which they fled or were driven in the 1948 Middle East war.

Although also reviled by the right-wing Israeli government, the plan seems to be gaining ground in the country. A poll on Monday showed 31.2 per cent approved, up from 25 per cent in October. Opposition dropped from 54 per cent to 37.7 per cent.

"The only alternative to this initiative is sustained and growing violence," Carter told an audience of about 1,000, people, who included many Israelis and Palestinians specially flown in for the launch.

Fellow Nobel peace prize winners Nelson Mandela of South Africa, via a video link, and Poland's Lech Walesa in person joined Carter in addressing the ceremony in the city where the plan was negotiated in secret over.

Among the 58 signatories of the statement of support were ex-presidents Mikhail Gorbachev of the ex-Soviet Union, Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, F.W. de Klerk of South Africa and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana sent a message calling it "a powerful example of how civil society efforts can...show Israelis and Palestinians alike that there are partners for peace on the other side".

With an olive tree centre-stage, Israeli and Palestinian singers and former top military figures from both sides took part in the ceremony hosted by US actor Richard Dreyfuss.

The plan's roll-out came amid an upsurge of diplomatic efforts to halt the violence, but it also coincided with fresh bloodshed as Israeli forces killed four Palestinians and arrested 30 more in the West Bank earlier on Monday.

- REUTERS