Israelis doubt revived Arab plan will bring peace

Most Israelis are sceptical that the Arab League's modification of its plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will bear fruit, AFP reports according to a poll published in a Tel Aviv newspaper on Friday. Asked if they saw a revised Arab offer of full diplomatic ties in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from land occupied in 1967, with mutually agreed land swaps with the Palestinians, sparking new peace talks, 54.8 percent of respondents answered "no", the Israel Hayom freesheet said. Only 17.3 percent said "yes", while 27.9 percent answered "don't know", said the poll of 504 Jewish Israelis, which had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points. Israel's top peace negotiator Tzipi Livni said in New York on Thursday that the modified Arab League initiative, welcomed by US Secretary of State John Kerry, could bring new talks closer. "It is (in) the interests of Israel, the interests of the Palestinians and the interests of the international community," Livni told reporters after talks with UN leader Ban Ki-moon. "It is clear that Secretary Kerry is completely involved, determined, and I believe that basically it (new talks) is something that we need to do." Livni, who held talks earlier in Washington with Kerry, said the move was "important for different reasons." "One is the idea that even though we have a situation which is very difficult in the region and we have the states that are collapsing, and the region with all these problems, but yet we have the Arab League supporting these talks between Israel and the Palestinians and this is good news. "The other good news is that basically what they said is that the Arab peace initiative is not something which is take it or leave it but it is negotiable," she added.