Unlikely pair bring Middle East initiative to Seattle for support

A former Israeli security chief and a prominent Palestinian brought their plan for peace to Seattle yesterday on a tour across the United States to raise support for it.

"We would like to live in peace," said Sari Nusseibeh, the Palestinian part of the duo. "And we are willing to pay the price for it."

He and Ami Ayalon spoke yesterday at Seattle University and the University of Washington to promote their "People's Voice Initiative," a petition-gathering drive launched in June in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The two make an unlikely pair. Ayalon, a retired admiral, once ran Israel's navy and the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service. Nusseibeh was the Palestinian Liberation Organization's representative in Jerusalem and is now the president of Jerusalem's Al Quds University.

So far, they've gathered 150,000 signatures as part of a grass-roots effort to end the conflict.

In Nusseibeh's phrasing, previous plans had been "conceived in the clouds" and "then parachuted to the Israelis and Palestinians below."

Their six-point "statement of principles" calls for Israel to pull back to its 1967 borders and establishes "two states for two peoples." Unlike other peace plans, in which the thorny issues of Jerusalem, Jewish settlers and Palestinian refugees were left to deal with at the end, it tackles them head on.

The roughly 4 million Palestinian refugees -- some of the 700,000 who fled or were evicted from their homes in 1948, and their descendants -- could settle in the new Palestinian state, not in Israel. And many of the more than 200,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would have to move to Israel. Both states would call Jerusalem their capital.

The new Palestinian state would be without a military, its security guaranteed by the "international community." This was a request from the Israeli side, Nusseibeh said, but he thought it made sense. It would take too much money for a Palestinian military to catch up to Israel, a country with modern weapons and nuclear arms. Better, he said, to invest that money in science and education, "not the power of guns."

Americans and Israelis tell them they can't understand why Palestinians would give up a military. "Palestinians never ask that question," Nusseibeh said.

The entire proposal is small enough to fit at the top of their petitions. "Short enough for many people to read," Ayalon said, "because people don't read anymore."

After the talk at Seattle University finished, a couple at the front of the auditorium stayed in their seats. They responded to the initiative with a hopeful pessimism. The woman, who asked that her name be withheld, lived in Israel for six years and called it a good beginning, but had doubts. Sitting next to her, Randall Cohen said that he believed a majority of Palestinians and Israelis wanted peace. But only one side, Israel, lives in a democracy. He said it's easier for Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestinian Authority, to ignore what people want.

"The problem is how can you have a grass-roots movement without a democracy?" he asked.

Cohen and his friend then walked out of the building and ran into Nusseibeh, smoking a cigarette and listening to a man lecture him. Cohen stepped between them and shook Nusseibeh's hand.

P-I reporter Matthew Craft can be reached at 206-448-8126 or matthewcraft@seattlepi.com

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