The PLO took the unprecedented step of placing advertisements in Israeli newspapers on Thursday to promote a six-year-old Arab peace plan for the region.
Yediot Aharonot, Maariv and Haaretz, the three leading Israeli dailies, printed the advertisement, which is headed by the Palestinian and Israeli flags.
"Fifty-seven Arab and Islamic countries will establish diplomatic ties and normal relations with Israel in return for a full peace agreement and an end to the occupation," the text of the add read, under Palestinian and Israel flags set side by side.
According to Haaretz, the direct appeal by the Palestinian Authority to the Israeli public, over the heads of the Israeli leadership, is being seen by observers as an extraordinary event.
Senior Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo said the campaign was meant to inform Israelis about the peace initiative, which until now has been "misinterpreted by the extreme Israeli right wing as an Arab conspiracy against Israel and its future".
The advertisement, bordered by the flags of dozens of Arab and other Muslim states, also ran in Arabic in three Palestinian papers.
Similar ads were published in Palestinian media and, according to Rabbo, in some European newspapers.
The Arab League proposal offers Israel peace and normal relations with all Arab countries in return for its withdrawal from all territory the Jewish state captured in the 1967 Middle East war — the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
The Saudi-inspired peace plan was presented at an Arab summit in Beirut in 2002 and re-launched at a Riyadh summit in 2007.
The plan also calls for the sides to agree to a "just solution" for millions of Palestinians classed as refugees from homes and land taken by the new Israeli state in 1948.
Egypt and Jordan are the only two of 22 Arab League members to have peace accords with Israel. While some Muslim countries, like Turkey, have close relations, Israelis would like to trade with others, notably in Asia and the Gulf.
Previous Israeli governments have either ignored or rejected the Arab initiative, which would require Israel to dismantle settlements which house hundreds of thousands of Jews.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who could become prime minister after Israel’s election in February, has described the Arab initiative as an "opportunity" but said this month that peace needed to be hammered out in bilateral talks between Israel, the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors.
President Shimon Peres, whose position is largely ceremonial, said the Arab plan brought hope to the Middle East.
(Alarabiya.net and agencies)
