Arab peace plan as part of Palestinian state push: U.S.

By Mohammed Assadi

RAMALLAH (Reuters) - U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell said on Friday that an Arab peace initiative should be part of a planned U.S. drive to create a Palestinian state.

In three separate violent incidents in the West Bank on Friday, Israelis killed three Palestinian men, the highest number of deaths in the occupied territory for over a year.

The Arab initiative of 2002 offers Israel normal ties with all Arab states in return for a full withdrawal from the lands it seized in the 1967 Middle East war, creation of a Palestinian state and a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees.

"The U.S. is committed to the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state where the aspirations of the Palestinian people to control their destiny are realized. We want the Arab peace initiative to be part of the effort to reach this goal," Mitchell said after talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Mitchell did not elaborate on what part the Arab initiative might play in U.S. attempts to mediate a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.

U.S. leaders including President Barack Obama have made references to the Arab peace plan without ever endorsing the Arab demand that Israel withdraw from all the land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war -- the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip, which is under siege.

The previous U.S. administration of George W. Bush tried without success to use the Arab peace plan to draw Saudi Arabia and other conservative Gulf states into contacts with Israel before the Israelis gave any commitment to full withdrawal.

But Mitchell's remarks were another reminder to Israel's new right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that the United States wants to see progress.