Arab Peace Initiative edit
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Arab Peace Initiative edit
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The Arab Peace Initiative (Arabic Language: مبادرة السلام العربية) is a peace initiative first proposed in 2002 by then-Crown Prince, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in the Beirut Summit of the Arab League. The peace initiative is a proposed solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict as a whole, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular. The initiative obtained the unanimous consent of all members of the Arab League. The initiative was initially published on 28 March 2002 at the Beirut Summit, and again endorsed at the Riyadh Summit in 2007.
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The Arab Peace Initiative was adopted at the Arab League summit which took place on March 28, 2002. Although the Initiative obtained the support of all Arab states, three key leaders were absent from the meeting: Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan. The plan consists of a comprehensive proposal to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. It provides in relevant part:
| “ | (a) Complete withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the 4 June 1967 line and the territories still occupied in southern Lebanon; (b) Attain a just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees to be agreed upon in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution No 194. (c) Accept the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since 4 June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital. In return the Arab states will do the following: (a) Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict over, sign a peace agreement with Israel, and achieve peace for all states in the region; (b) Establish normal relations with Israel within the framework of this comprehensive peace.1 | ” |
The Peace Initiative was endorsed unilaterally by all 22 members of the Arab League. Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia made a speech to the Arab League on the same day in which he said that:
| “ | In spite of all that has happened and what still may happen, the primary issue in the heart and mind of every person in our Arab Islamic nation is the restoration of legitimate rights in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. [...] We believe in taking up arms in self-defence and to deter aggression. But we also believe in peace when it is based on justice and equity, and when it brings an end to conflict. Only within the context of true peace can normal relations flourish between the people of the region and allow the region to pursue development rather than war. In light of the above, and with your backing and that of the Almighty, I propose that the Arab summit put forward a clear and unanimous initiative addressed to the United Nations security council based on two basic issues: normal relations and security for Israel in exchange for full withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories, recognition of an independent Palestinian state with al-Quds al-Sharif as its capital, and the return of refugees.2 | ” |
Although the Arab Peace Initiative represented a major development in the Arab-Israeli peace process, it received almost scant attention in Israel itself, which was pursuing a major military operation within the Palestinian Territories, including around Ramallah. Israel was also suffering from a series of suicide bombings, including a major incident which took place on March 27, 2002, killing at least 20 people. The security incidents compelled the United Nations Security Council to issue a unanimous resolution, which condemned both sides. Security Council Resolution 1402 provides in relevant part that:
| “ | Expressing its grave concern at the further deterioration of the situation, including the recent suicide bombings in Israel and the military attack against the headquarters of the President of the Palestinian Authority, 1. Calls upon both parties to move immediately to a meaningful ceasefire; calls for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian cities, including Ramallah; and calls upon the parties to cooperate fully with Special Envoy Zinni, and others, to implement the Tenet security work plan as a first step towards implementation of the Mitchell Committee recommendations, with the aim of resuming negotiations on a political settlement[.]3 | ” |
The initiative was fully endorsed by the Arab League at the Riyadh Summit in 2007 by all members as well as by the Muslim World Summit which gave it complete credibility for if it is undertaken the normalization with Israel will be done by the entire Muslim and Arab Worlds.
The initiative calls for the establishment of a special committee composed of a portion of the Arab League's concerned member states and the Secretary General of the League of Arab States to pursue the necessary contacts to gain support for the initiative at all levels, particularly from the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the Muslim states and the European Union. This special commission was composed on [date] and consists of delegations from both Egypt and Jordan on behalf of the Arab world.
On March 28, 2002, then Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres welcomed the initiative and said:
On November 12, 2008, President Shimon Peres reiterated his support for the initiative at the UN General Assembly Meeting on Inter-Faith Dialogue:
| “ | The Arab peace initiative states that: "A military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties." Israel agrees with that assumption. Further on, the initiative states that: "A just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is the strategic option of the Arab countries." This is Israel's strategy as well. It continues that its goals are to: "...consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states in the region. Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of comprehensive peace. Stop the further shedding of blood, enabling the Arab countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighborliness, and provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity." These expressions in the Arab peace initiative are inspirational and promising - a serious opening for real progress.4 | ” |
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has described the Initiative as a "revolutionary change".5 However, Olmert has also expressed reservations on the Initiative's language on the Palestinian refugee crisis. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post published on March 30, 2007, Olmert said that:
| “ | I'll never accept a solution that is based on their return to Israel, any number. [...] I will not agree to accept any kind of Israel responsibility for the refugees. Full stop. It's a moral issue of the highest level. I don't think that we should accept any kind of responsibility for the creation of this problem.6 | ” |
Many Israeli commentators and analysts have expressed support for the initiative, including Yossi Alpher, a political consultant and writer, and former senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the Camp David summit. During an interview on November 24, 2008, Mr Alpher said that: "The initiative is unique in terms of the comprehensive “payoff” it offers Israel and, with regard to refugees, both the absence of any direct mention of the right of return and the recognition that Israel's agreement to a solution must be solicited. It represents huge progress from the days in 1967 when the Arab League, in response to the Six-Day War, delivered to Israel its famous “three no’s”: no to recognition, no to negotiations and no to peace. The PLO ad in the Israeli press, which is being reciprocated by Peace Now in the Palestinian press, appears also to constitute a response to a growing recognition in Israel of the advantages of engaging the Arab world over the initiative. Essentially, politicians like Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak (echoing comments by President Shimon Peres) and Ehud Olmert see the initiative, with reservations, as an opportunity to recruit broader Arab support for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the framework of closer Israel-Arab cooperation on regional security issues like Iran and terrorism."[2]
However, a joint survey of opinions carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah and the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in December 2008 found that only 36% of Israelis support the Arab Peace Initiative.[3]
The Arab Peace Plan has received the full support of the Palestinian Authority, which even took the unprecedented step of placing advertisements in Israeli newspapers on November 20, 2008 to promote the Peace Plan. The Palestinian Authority published full-page notices in Hebrew in four major Israeli daily newspapers, which reproduced the text of the Initiative in full, adding that: "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.".[4]
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has also offered his full support of the Arab Peace Initiative, and has urged Israel to support it on several occasions. Most recently, in statements that were published on October 19, 2008, Mr Erekat said that: "I think Israel should have [supported the Initiative] since 2002. It is the most strategic initiative that came from the Arab world since 1948," he said. "I urge them to revisit this initiative and to go with it because it will shorten the way to peace."[5]
Hamas' spokesman Ismail Abu Shanab said on the same day that his organization would accept the initiative: "That would be satisfactory for all Palestinian military groups to stop and build our state, to be busy in our own affairs, and have good neighborhood with Israelis."[6]
In addition to their unanimous endorsement of the Arab Peace Initiative in both 2002 and 2007, Arab policy makers, chiefs of state, and commentators have written in support of the Initiative on a number of occasions since 2002. By way of example, Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, wrote in the Washington Post in support of the Arab Peace Initiative shortly after Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 elections:
| “ | President-elect Barack Obama is about to inherit not just a nation entrenched in two wars but a world of instability and an entire Middle East that is sick with discord. While disputes in this region may seem eternal, there are reasons to be optimistic. If Obama joins with forces for peace and stability and acts boldly, his presidency could have a marked impact on world affairs. The best medicine yet formulated for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is the Arab peace initiative of 2002. One must consider the prospect of "peace" in context. [...] The Arab world has presented two clear proposals, the Fahd peace plan of 1981 and the 2002 Arab peace initiative. Both were endorsed by all Arab nations. The Arab world is willing to pay a high price for peace, not only recognizing Israel as a legitimate state but also normalizing relations and putting a permanent end to the state of hostilities that has existed since 1948. In return, we ask Israel to pursue the just course laid out in various international resolutions and laws: to withdraw completely from the lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, returning to the lines of June 4, 1967; to accept a just solution to the refugee problem according to U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194; and to recognize the independent state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.7 | ” |
In addition, a statement published on the Jordanian Embassy in Washington DC states that:
| “ | The initiative adopted by the Arab leaders at the Beirut Summit last March offers a unique opportunity and a fresh basis for movement in the peace process. It extends for the first time in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict a comprehensive offer for full peace and normal relations between Israel and all the Arab states in return for Israel’s withdrawal from territories occupied after June 4th 1967, as well as an agreed solution to the refugee problem and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Jordan had been a critical and vocal player in bringing forward this resolution in the Arab Summit and in advancing it in all future steps in the peace process.8 | ” |
Marwan Muasher, formerly Jordanian Foreign Minister and the first Jordanian ambassador to Israel, wrote in Haaretz on August 19, 2008 that:
| “ | Six years ago, the Arab League took a bold step in the pursuit of a comprehensive and lasting peace in our region. At the Beirut Arab League Summit in 2002, 22 states unanimously adopted the Arab Peace Initiative - a historic document that offered a formula for ending not only the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but also the wider, lingering Arab-Israeli conflict, and to achieve a collective peace, security for all and normal relations with Israel. The initiative was the embodiment of the moderate camp in the Arab world and of its leap of faith in addressing both Arab and Israeli needs. Unfortunately, the Arab Peace Initiative was not related to seriously by the two players whose support and endorsement were crucial for its implementation: Neither Israel nor the United States responded with more than lip service. Arab states are also to be blamed for failing to explain the initiative to the Israeli public, our principal audience.9 | ” |
In addition, the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council expressed their support of the Initiative on May 20 during a consultative meeting that was held in Dammam.[7]
Support for the Arab Peace Plan was also expressed by Andre Azoulay, a Jewish adviser to Moroccan King Mohammed VI. On October 28, 2008, Mr Azoulay said at a conference in Tel Aviv that: "I am a Jew with a commitment," said Andre Azoulay. "I'm an Arab Jew. I advise the king of Morocco... The Arab mainstream sees Israel as the party responsible for preventing peace, not the Arabs. [...] [The Peace Plan] is something that the Israelis hoped for ten years ago. But who knows about it in Israel today? Who will take the initiative and explain it? The momentum will not last forever. This is a dangerous situation. Tomorrow something could happen in the West Bank and blow the whole deal, and we'll have to wait again." [8]
Outside of the Middle East, the Arab Peace Initiative has received the support of chiefs of state throughout the world, international organisations, and a large number of political commentators specialicising in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, has led this chorus of support on a number of occasions. Recently, he voiced his view of the Initiative in his address to the Summit of the League of Arab States on March 28, 2007, in which he said:
| “ | The Arab Peace Initiative is one of the pillars of the peace process. Endorsed in the Road Map, the Initiative sends a clear signal that the Arab world, too, craves peace. When I was in Israel, I urged my Israeli friends to take a fresh look at the Arab Peace Initiative. Here in Riyadh, I urge you, my Arab friends, to use this Summit to reaffirm your commitment to the Initiative. We must build on these new stirrings of potential. The status quo is dangerous. But there are positive signs. The formation of a National Unity Government in Palestine and the prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue offers the prospect of hope. At the same time, the Quartet has been re-energized and the Arab Peace Initiative suggests a new way forward for the region.10 | ” |
The Arab Peace Initiative was endorsed by the Quartet on April 30, 2003, when it published the Road Map. The Road Map provides in relevant part that:
| “ | The settlement will resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and end the occupation that began in 1967, based on [...] the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah - endorsed by the Beirut Arab League Summit - calling for acceptance of Israel as a neighbor living in peace and security, in the context of a comprehensive settlement. This initiative is a vital element of international efforts to promote a comprehensive peace on all tracks, including the Syrian-Israeli and Lebanese-Israeli tracks.11 | ” |
The UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown also voiced support for the Initiative during a press conference that was held on December 15, 2008 at the London Business Forum on Trade and Investment with Palestine, Downing Street. The Prime Minister said:
| “ | We will welcome the renewed focus on the Arab Peace Initiative embodied in the recent letter by 22 states calling for President-elect Obama to prioritise achieving a comprehensive peace and we want to seek to build on the progress that has been made after Annapolis which was undertaken by President Bush and then made in negotiations over the past year. [...] I think it is important to recognise that the Arab Peace Initiative, the 22 Arab States calling on President-elect Obama to prioritise the achieving of a comprehensive plan, is a very important development indeed. It is the 22 Arab countries coming behind progress that can happen quickly in their view. Asking the new Presidency in America to take this as an urgent priority, and we are very much of the same view and we will do our best to promote that initiative. 12 | ” |
The UK Foreign Minister David Miliband reiterated that support on November 24, 2008. In a speech delivered on that day in Abu Dhabi at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research, he said that:
| “ | [W]hen the Arab Peace Initiative was launched in 2002 it was simply not given the attention it deserved. It was - and still is - one of the most significant and promising developments since the start of the conflict. My belief is that the time has come to build on this initiative and ensure Arab leaders are part of a renewed comprehensive peace process - active participants with interests and responsibilities, not substituting for Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, but not passive spectators either. It is an argument that I make not just to you in the Arab world, but to all Britain's international partners.13 | ” |
All of the 57 states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference have expressed their support for the Arab Peace Initiative. The members of the Organisation re-affirm their support at almost each of their session (including, for example, the 33rd Session of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers Session of Harmony of Rights, Freedoms and Justice, which took place on June 19 - 21, 2006 in Baku, Azerbaijan).[9]
The Initiative has also obtained the support of a large number of leading commentators on Middle East issues. On April 9, 2007, Noam Chomsky, one of the world's leading and most popular political commentators, offered the following thoughts shortly after the Beirut Declaration was readopted by the League of Arab States:
| “ | The Arab League plan goes beyond earlier versions of the international consensus by calling for full normalization of relations with Israel. By now, the US and Israel can't simply ignore it, because US relations with Saudi Arabia are too tenuous, and because of the catastrophic effects of the Iraq invasion (and the great regional concern that the US will go on to attack Iran, very strongly opposed in the region, apart from Israel). So therefore the US and Israel are departing slightly from their extreme unilateral rejectionism, at least in rhetoric, though not in substance.14 | ” |
Ian Black, the Guardian's Middle East Editor, wrote on 18 October 2008 that:
| “ | It was common ground that part of the problem is that the Arab initiative was overshadowed by the worst incident of the second intifada - when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 30 Israelis at their Passover meal on the eve of the Beirut summit - and Israel reoccupied most of the West Bank. The plan generated headlines when it was re-endorsed, again under Saudi auspices, at the Riyadh Arab summit last year. But thanks to Israeli objections it did not get a mention when Bush convened the Annapolis conference a few months later. The Annapolis goal of Israeli-Palestinian agreement by the end of his presidency looks like a bad joke. Ignorance is part of the problem. As someone quipped: you can wake an Israeli of a certain age at 3am, say the word "Khartoum" and he will immediately identify the post-1967 war Arab summit in the Sudanese capital that produced three notorious "noes" - no peace, no recognition, no negotiations with Israel (which set the Arab consensus, broken only by Egypt, for the next 20 years). But the Saudi plan, which says exactly the opposite, is still likely to produce blank stares at any time. Ehud Olmert, Israel's outgoing prime minister, misrepresented the Arab initiative as a take-it-or-leave-it diktat, claiming it required the return of millions of Palestinian refugees - a red line for the any Israeli government - when it in fact talks sensibly of reaching "a just solution". Nor does it preclude negotiating land swaps, for example, so that Palestinians would get territory to compensate them for areas where post-1967 Israeli settlements cannot be moved.15 | ” |
Jonathan Freedland, also from the Guardian, wrote on December 17, 2008 that:
| “ | There are problems with the Arab plan. For one thing, there has been no public diplomacy for it, no public face for it - no equivalent of Anwar Sadat's breakthrough visit to Israel, proving the sincerity of his desire for peace. And how would it work in practice? [...] And yet the logic behind it is compelling. Right now, the Palestinians don't have enough to offer Israel to make the sacrifices required for a peace deal worthwhile. But an accord with the entire Arab world, that would be a prize worth bending for. And, while today's Palestinian leadership is too weak to make compromises on, for instance, Jerusalem, united Arab support would give the Palestinians all the cover they need.16 | ” |
Shortly before the Beirut Declaration was to be readopted by the Arab League in 2007, Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times that:
| “ | What the moribund Israeli-Palestinian talks need most today is an emotional breakthrough. Another Arab declaration, just reaffirming the Abdullah initiative, won’t cut it. If King Abdullah wants to lead — and he has the integrity and credibility to do so — he needs to fly from the Riyadh summit to Jerusalem and deliver the offer personally to the Israeli people. That is what Egypt’s Anwar Sadat did when he forged his breakthrough. If King Abdullah did the same, he could end this conflict once and for all. I would humbly suggest the Saudi king make four stops. His first stop should be to Al Aksa Mosque in East Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. There, he, the custodian of Mecca and Medina, could reaffirm the Muslim claim to Arab East Jerusalem by praying at Al Aksa. From there, he could travel to Ramallah and address the Palestinian parliament, making clear that the Abdullah initiative aims to give Palestinians the leverage to offer Israel peace with the whole Arab world in return for full withdrawal. And he might add that whatever deal the Palestinians cut with Israel regarding return of refugees or land swaps — so some settlements might stay in the West Bank in return for the Palestinians getting pieces of Israel — the Arab world would support. From there, King Abdullah could helicopter to Yad Vashem, the memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. A visit there would seal the deal with Israelis and affirm that the Muslim world rejects the Holocaust denialism of Iran. Then he could go to the Israeli parliament and formally deliver his peace initiative.17 | ” |
On the day that the Beirut Declaration was to be readopted by the Arab League in 2007, Donald Macintyre wrote in the Independent that:
| “ | The Beirut declaration in favour of a two-state solution to the conflict marked a historic departure, even by the most hardline states. But it came at the bloody peak of the intifada and it was ignored by the US and rejected by the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon. The atmosphere now is very different. Not only has the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said warm words about the initiative, but the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has gone out of his way publicly to stress that it has "positive elements". More, the US - at least in the person of Dr Rice - has become diplomatically engaged in the conflict in a way that her predecessor Colin Powell was never able, or allowed, to do. Having visited Jerusalem and Ramallah four times in the past four months, she has spoken openly about the need for the Palestinians - in return for guaranteeing Israel's security - to have a "political horizon".18 | ” |
The Oxford Research Group organised a meeting in October 2008 that was attended by senior policy makers and analysts in order to discuss the Arab Peace Initiative. A report was published in November 2008 in order to summarize the meeting's findings, which included the following:
| “ | [T]he API as a remarkable and historic document, effectively reversing the three ‘noes’ of the 1967 Khartoum Arab Summit (no peace, no recognition, no negotiation with Israel). It is the only regional peace proposal on offer and is widely regarded as the ‘only show in town’ that encompasses the three sets of bilateral negotiations (with Palestinians, Syria, Lebanon) within a comprehensive multilateral framework. It has been reaffirmed most recently at the Damascus summit in 2008. The consensus was that the API offers the outline of an agreement that is very much in the strategic interest of Israel. It was seen as a deal that the founders of the State of Israel would surely have embraced with characteristic boldness, and negotiated with vigour. Participants agreed that there is no alternative framework that does or can effectively guarantee the future of a Jewish democratic state on 78% of mandate Palestine within a context of regional recognition and cooperation.19 | ” |
The Initiative did not appear to gain momentum after its publication in 2002. On 30 January 2004, it appeared that Saudi Arabia was preparing a supplementary initiative in preparation for the next Arab League summit meeting. The Kuwaiti newspaper, as-Siyasa, reported that the supplementary initiative would call for the resettlement of up to 2 million refugees in Arab countries and the rest in a Palestinian state. [10] [11] In response, the Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath called the report "nonsense," and Saudi officials denied such a plan was being proposed. The central committee of Fatah, the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority at that time, issued a statement describing the Saudi initiative as another "stab" against the struggle of the Palestinian people.
At the Beirut Summit, Lebanon and Syria campaigned for the inclusion of a reference to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, which emphasizes the Palestinian right of return to Israel. A compromise was eventually reached, citing the resolution but stating that the League would support any agreement between Israel and Palestinians on the issue.
Jordan and Egypt were appointed by the Arab League as its representatives to meet with Israeli leaders to promote the Initiative. These countries were chosen because Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel. Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah Khatib and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem on 25 July 2007. This was the first time that Israel received an official delegation from the Arab League.20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
In November 2008, The Sunday Times reported that American president-elect Barack Obama is going to support the plan, saying to Mahmoud Abbas during his July 2008 visit to the Middle East that "The Israelis would be crazy not to accept this initiative. It would give them peace with the Muslim world from Indonesia to Morocco."30
On November 21, 2008, Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski supported the initiative in an article in the Washington Post, in which they wrote that:
| “ | The major elements of an agreement are well known. A key element in any new initiative would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be. These should contain four principal elements: 1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state. Something more might be needed to deal with Israeli security concerns about turning over territory to a Palestinian government incapable of securing Israel against terrorist activity. That could be dealt with by deploying an international peacekeeping force, such as one from NATO, which could not only replace Israeli security but train Palestinian troops to become effective.31 | ” |
The Arab League also sent President-Elect Barack Obama an official communication that was signed by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and delivered to Obama via an aide. A spokesman for the Arab League explained that:
| “ | The letter explains our stance on the conflict, focusing on the Arab peace proposal. This is a new administration. It is important that we follow up with it and that it assumes its responsibilities. The new administration will be busy with other things, but we think that it is important for it to focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict.32 | ” |
