28 March marks 10 years from the launch of the ground-breaking, Saudi-led, Arab Peace Initiative (API). But don't expect to hear the sound of celebrations. A decade later, the proposal, which seemed so promising on paper, has failed to make a mark on the ground. Progress towards a two-state outcome in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute remains vital. But in the context of the current regional turmoil, incremental steps on the ground may achieve more than grand statements.
In many ways the API was a huge step forward. The 22 Arab League states offered to normalise relations with Israel in return for Israeli withdrawal to pre-June 1967 borders, the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a "just solution" to the Palestinian refugee problem. Prior to this only Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians had established relations with Israel.
However, there were significant problems in the initiative's content and presentation. The first was timing. If Israelis remember 28 March 2002, they remember waking up to the news that a Hamas suicide bomber had killed thirty at a Passover meal in a Netanya hotel. This was the peak of the Second Intifada. Israel was in daily conflict with Palestinian armed groups in Gaza and the West Bank, many of whom were opposed to the peace process on any terms. Against the backdrop of a wave of terrorism, many Israelis perceived the Saudi initiative as a PR stunt.
As for the content, the demand for full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines was unacceptable to Israel, which seeks adjustments to make Israel's borders more secure and incorporate major West Bank settlements. Equally problematic was the issue of refugees. Israel's future depends on the Palestinian refugee problem being solved in a new Palestinian state, not in Israel. The API was vague on this point, as it was on the question of Jerusalem.
Rather than setting out its term as a basis for negotiations, the Arab League seemed to present a 'take it or leave it' deal. Israelis were unclear as to whether the proposal was supposed to give backing to the Palestinians to negotiate a deal, or to tie their hands and prevent them making concessions beyond what the API proposed. The Arab states made little effort to turn the statement into a process or dialogue. It was, in effect, all dressed up with nowhere to go. Though Israeli leaders warmed to the potential of the API over the years, major developments such as the Roadmap, Israel's Gaza withdrawal, and the Annapolis talks, happened with little involvement from Arab states.
In 2009, the Obama administration tried to turn the API into a process by calling on the Arabs to make gestures towards normalisation in return for an Israeli freeze on settlement building. Unfortunately, the Arab states were unwilling to challenge popular anti-Israel sentiment in the region by offering anything to Israel up front. Nor did they do much to support President Abbas and give him political cover to enter negotiations.
It did not help that the atmosphere was soured by Operation Cast Lead in early 2009, and by the replacement of Ehud Olmert's government by a centre-right coalition under Benjamin Netanyahu. But even after Netanyahu announced a partial, ten-month moratorium on settlement building in November 2009, the Arab states offered nothing in return.
Today, Islamist parties opposed to Israel's existence are on the rise in the region. War with Israel may not be their priority, but peace is not on their agenda either. Relations between Israel and Egypt are in serious trouble. Such an unstable Arab world cannot be expected to provide big solutions to unjam the peace process.
To move towards the goal of a conflict-ending agreement in an increasingly unstable region, rather than thinking bigger, we may have to think smaller. As I argued, along with Alan Johnson, in a recent policy brief for the Foreign Policy Centre, the focus should be improving conditions to make a deal possible in the future. The bottom-up state building process in the West Bank has been one of the few positive trends in recent years. To keep this going, Israel and the Palestinians, with international encouragement, need to avoiding provocations and take incremental steps to increase Palestinian autonomy and shape a two-state reality on the ground.
When it comes to the wider region, as a paper for BICOM by Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Herzog proposes, the West should use its economic leverage to press Islamist actors to refrain from anti-Israel rhetoric, and in the case of Egypt, to avoid calling into question the existing peace agreement.
Ten years on from the Arab Peace Initiative, region-wide peace may not be around the corner, but the proposal remains a tantalising hint of what could be. The international community, and the parties in the region, must act where they can to preserve the conditions for realising it in the future.
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The post above is accurate about a lot of things. But it comes off as bizarre that the Arabs get blamed for not moving forward with the negotiations after Israel ignored the proposal. It is hard to know how far the Saudis would have gone if Israel had responded to the proposal (and if the other Arab countries would have followed) but when one side makes a forward going proposal and the other side ignores it, the blame is not on the side that put forward the proposal for not doing another proposal.
They are also being criticized for putting their proposal forward without being clear enough (why isn't clear) that a counter proposal is possible. But then most proposals are not put forward with explanations of which parts they can be talked out of.
No the criticism of the Saudis for not advancing on their proposal which was ignored by the Israelis remains bizarre.
That you somehow read your take on that matter into what the post says is also somewhat bizarre.
It was nothing but a ‘remodeling’ of the palestinians’ position with a nicer clothing. When the Saudis insisted on the ‘Right of Return’ their offer became a non-offer. No Israeli PM or government will accept such condition even as a starting point…. The Arab refugees are a fabricated issue created by the Arab league and enforced by the timid UN who succumbed to the Oil rich Arab countries and established UNRAW as a toll to prolong forever the status on these refugees, THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD AFTER SCORE OF WARS all over the world….Not to mention the over 800,000 Jewish refugees expelled from the surrounding Arab countries.
IN the great scheme of the Mideast, the Saudi’s offer was and is a sham! Nothing more and nothing less, all the rest were incidental events.
But that Saudi offer which for the first time gave an offer of a recognition of Israel across the Arab world, that doesn't count as anything because it was not a final peace deal by itself. Fair enough.
Steps towards peace should be supported as such. Misdescribing them only supports the opponents of peace proposals.
This is it? The answer is more pressure on Palestinians so that they stop bad mouthing their tormentors? That was the whole problem?
Israel did not even read or respond to the historic proposal if I recall correctlyl. A whole decade has been lost. While Israeli leaders have whined incessantly about Arabs not wanting peace. Parties that signed under it do not even exist today. Meanwhile occupation has continued to steal land and lives. The author has not even touched it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1844214.stm
With regards to refugees, it says the following:
"2b. Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian Refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194. "
"a just solution to be agreed upon", in other words, to negotiate with Israel.
Now, like you write, the Right of Return is a RIGHT, although most sane people will agree that a return of millions of Palestinians is out of the question, so instead, Israel will have to offer something in return. That something is worth the value that Israel would attach to this Right of Return not being exercised by the Palestinians.
Legally, the Arab Israeli conflict began to be resolved upon the partition of "Palestine" - the name of a territory, not a nationality or a state, of course - between Arabs and Jews in 1921 and 1922. It was in 1921 that 77% of "Palestine" was handed over to the Arabs, located east of the Jordan river, who, subsequently renamed their part of "Palestine" Jordan since "Palestine" was not an Arab term.
In 1922 the rest, 23% of the territory, located between the Jordan River and the Med. Sea, was assigned to the Jews who, subsequently, renamed their part of "Palestine" Israel, since "Palestine" is not a Jewish term either. This act of partition by the League of Nations was then adopted by the United Nations and enshrined in its Charter, Article 80, as an irrevocable act.
http://www.mythsandfacts.com/conflict/mandate_for_palestine/mandate_for_palestine.pdf
It was on the basis of this corpus of legal acts that UN Security Council Resolution, 242, 1967, was designed, and on the basis of which the September 1995 Interim Agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was signed.
But, the Arab peace initiative of course appears to totally ignore this legal basis for the resolution of the Arab Israeli conflict.