Israel would like to launch serious discussions on the Arab peace initiative, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt, visiting Israel on Wednesday as representatives from the Arab League.

"I would like it if, next time you visit, you bring with you more ministers from other Arab states in order to discuss the Arab initiative with us," Olmert told Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and his Jordanian counterpart, Abdulelah al-Khatib.

The one-day visit by the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan marked the first time the 22-member Arab League has sent representatives to Israel. The Arab peace initiative calls for Israel to receive full recognition from all Arab states in exchange for a withdrawal to the pre-1967 boundaries and an agreed solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.

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Aboul Gheit said during the meeting with Olmert that he and al-Khatib came to Israel, in what the Foreign Ministry called a "historic" visit, with an Arab League mandate to explain the initiative to Jerusalem.

"We need a precise timetable, a quick timetable and we urge Israel not to waste this historic opportunity. Time is not on our side," al-Khatib told a news conference at the Foreign Ministry.

Olmert said that Israel is ready to discuss the initiative with "an open heart and an open head."

However, Olmert played down the role of the Arab League in future negotiations just before the meeting, saying he would not wait for the Arab League in order to pursue peace with the Palestinians.

"We hope that Israel and the Palestinian Authority will make sufficient bilateral progress, in order to create an atmosphere that will advance normalized relations between Israel and the rest of the Arab world," said Aboul Gheit.

Al-Khatib added that the initiative is a "historic development," and expressed hope that Israel would use it as a basis to start negotiations with the Arab world.

"Most of the international community and the Arab states support the initiative, and we hope that everyone will benefit from it," he said.

Earlier, the ministers met with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem. They also discussed the peace initiative with President Shimon Peres and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

"We are extending a hand of peace on behalf of the whole region to you, and we hope that we'll be able to create the momentum needed to resume fruitful and productive negotiations" between Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states, Al-Khatib said.

Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu explained to the foreign ministers at a meeting Wednesday his rejection of the Arab peace plan.

Netanyahu said the 2005 unilateral pullout from Gaza had failed, and added, "Wherever Israel hands over territory, the place immediately turns into a terror base for radical Islam."

"We need to restart the political process by means of economic projects which will advance peace and not the opposite," the Likud MK said.

Aboul Gheit and Al-Khatib later met with President Shimon Peres Wednesday morning.

Peres was non-committal about the peace plan. "I don't think that you can achieve peace in one meeting or two meetings. But the first steps are very important and we should continue to act in goodwill," he said.

They then had lunch with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. In the afternoon, they were scheduled to pay a rare visit to the Knesset and to address its Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, but not the plenum.

"It is the first time the Arab League has authorized a delegation to come to Israel," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said, calling the visit "historic."

He said the sides would discuss how the Arab League peace initiative, first proposed at a summit in Beirut in 2002 but re-launched at the latest summit in Riyadh in March, can "be of tangible benefits to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process" and serve as a "vehicle" to promote progress.

The Arab League, he added, also had a "very important role to play" in supporting Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in his struggle with the Islamist Hamas movement.

"We believe it's very important those pragmatic Arab states support moderate and pragmatic Palestinians," he said. "It would be counterproductive if the moderate Palestinian leadership would be supported only by the West."

In a special interview with Haaretz on Thursday, al-Khatib urged Israel to focus on peacemaking with the Palestinians before making peace with Syria.

"Peace with Syria is no alternative to peace with the Palestinians; the heart of the problem in the region is the Palestinian problem, and without a solution to it there will be no peace in the region," Al-Khatib said.Histadrut chairman to meet with Finance Minister Roni Bar-On later Wednesday evening (Haaretz)