Arab Peace Initiative
The Arab Peace Initiative, also known as the Saudi Initiative, is a 10 sentence proposal for an end to the Arab–Israeli conflict that was endorsed by the Arab League in 2002 at the Beirut Summit and re-endorsed at the 2007 and at the 2017 Arab League summits. The initiative offers normalisation of relations by the Arab world with Israel, in return for a full withdrawal by Israel from the occupied territories, with the possibility of comparable and mutual agreed minor swaps of the land between Israel and Palestine, a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN Resolution 194, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat immediately embraced the initiative. His successor Mahmoud Abbas also supported the plan and officially asked U.S. president Barack Obama to adopt it as part of his Middle East policy. Initial reports indicate that Islamist political party Hamas, the elected government of the Gaza Strip, was deeply divided, while later reports indicate that Hamas accepted the peace initiative. The Israeli government under Ariel Sharon rejected the initiative as a "non-starter" because it required Israel to withdraw to pre-June 1967 borders. In 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed tentative support for the Initiative, but in 2018, he rejected it as a basis for future negotiations with the Palestinians.
The plan
Prelude to the 2002 Beirut summit
The Arab League summit held after the Six-Day War, during which Israel occupied large swathes of Arab territory, established the Khartoum Resolution on September 1, 1967. It contained the "three noes" that was to be the center of all Israeli-Arab relations after that point: No peace deals, no diplomatic recognitions, and no negotiations. UN Security Council Resolution 242, which called for normalization of Israel with the Arab states and for Israel to withdraw from territories taken during the war, was enacted on November 22, 1967, and faced initial rejection by most of the Arab world. The peace initiative marked a major shift from the 1967 position.Like most peace plans since 1967, it was based on UN Security Council Resolution 242. It followed the July 2000 Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David which ended in failure and the al-Aqsa Intifada beginning in September 2000. In fall 2002, the Bush administration strenuously tried to push a temporary cease-fire in the intifada to give breathing room for the Beirut summit but failed to achieve an agreement. However, the presence of American negotiator Anthony Zinni in Israel led to a lull in the conflict for the two weeks before the summit. During this period, the Bush administration hoped to draw attention away from the Iraq disarmament crisis that would later escalate into the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Some reporters were skeptical about the summit's prospects. Robert Fisk explained the absence of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah: "they can smell a dead rat from quite a long way away." On March 14, analyst Shai Feldman stated on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer that "here's little hope that negotiations will pick up or that negotiations will eventually succeed in bringing about a negotiated outcome between the two sides." However, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman met Saudi crown prince Abdullah in February 2002 and encouraged him to make the peace proposal.
2002 summit
The declaration
Only ten of the twenty-two leaders invited to the March 27 Arab League summit in Beirut, Lebanon attended. The missing included Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and King Abdullah of Jordan. Ariel Sharon's government, despite American and European pressure, had told Arafat that he would not be allowed to return if he left for the summit. The lack of participation led Australian Broadcasting Corporation reporter Tim Palmer to label the summit "emasculated".File:King Abdullah bin Abdul al-Saud Jan2007.jpg|thumb|Abdullah, along with other members of the Saudi royal family, was outspoken in his support for the plan.
The Arab League members unanimously endorsed the peace initiative on March 27. It consists of a comprehensive proposal to end the entire Arab–Israeli conflict. It provides in relevant part:
Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia made a speech to the Arab League on the day of its adoption saying that:
The initiative refers to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, which emphasizes the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. In a compromise wording, it states that the League supports any negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestinians and does not mention the term "right of return".
Resistance to the summit
Although the Initiative was adopted unanimously, there was some debate on certain issues. The summit leaders faced stiff opposition from the government of Syria, which insisted on letting the Palestinians pursue armed resistance. It also objected to the use of the term "normalization" and insisted that any such offer was too generous to Israel. The government of Lebanon expressed concerns that some of its Palestinian refugees would try to settle where they are, which it strongly opposes.Passover massacre
A suicide bomber killed 30 Israelis in Netanya the same day the Initiative was launched. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack and its leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said that the attack sent "a message to the Arab summit to confirm that the Palestinian people continue to struggle for the land and to defend themselves no matter what measures the enemy takes." The Arab League said that it did not think that the perpetrators planned the bombing to derail the Beirut summit.The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack and Arafat personally ordered the arrests of militants associated with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as a response. However, Ariel Sharon blamed Arafat for the attack as well.
An Israeli government spokesperson stated that "here ain't going to be any negotiations under fire". Another government spokesperson, Raanan Gissin, said that Israel would continue to pursue the cease-fire but that "when we will feel that we have exhausted all the possibilities of achieving such a cease-fire, then of course we will take all the necessary measures in order to defend our citizens."
The Passover Massacre as well as other attacks led to an escalation of the al-Aqsa Intifada and helped falter the initiative. The violence led the United Nations Security Council to issue a unanimous resolution on March 30, Resolution 1402, which criticized all sides:
Re-adoption at the 2007 Riyadh summit
With the exception of Libya, all leaders from the Arab League's 22 member states attended the two-day summit in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, from March 28, to March 29, 2007. The initiative was fully re-endorsed by all members but the delegate from Hamas, then-Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, abstained. In contrast, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas voted in favor. The initiative itself was left unchanged during its re-adoption. Until the eve of the summit, members had refused to consider altering any part of it. Arab League head Amr Moussa stated that the Israel-Palestinian conflict was at a crossroads where "either we move towards a real peace or see an escalation in the situation".During the summit, King Abdullah denounced the United States-led occupation of Iraq; his comments may have been in response to a statement by U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice asking the Arab world to "begin reaching out to Israel". He also called on the Israeli blockade of Gaza to end, saying that "It has become necessary to end the unjust blockade imposed on the Palestinian people as soon as possible so that the peace process can move in an atmosphere far from oppression and force." The American and Israel governments had been heavily pushing the Arab states to cut their support for Hamas before the summit began.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon attended the summit, saying "the Arab peace initiative is one of the pillars of the peace process... sends a signal that the Arabs are serious about achieving peace." European Union foreign policy leader Javier Solana observed the proceedings and expressed the EU's support for the decision, saying that "ailure to rise to today's challenges will put the Middle East risk of missing the train of human and economic development". He also emphasized that the initiative served as a proposal up for further negotiations rather than a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum for both sides.
PLO negotiations chief Saeb Erekat refused to accept anything other than the summit's draft and ruled out any negotiations that could alter it. In contrast, Saudi foreign minister Saudi al-Faisal said that members have "to take notice of new developments, which require additions and developments in whatever is offered".
Implementation
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 United Nations Security Council, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the Muslim states and the European Union. This special commission would also consist of delegations from both Egypt and Jordan on behalf of the Arab world.Reactions
U.S. reactions
Initially, the initiative was met with enthusiastic support from the Bush administration. According to Bush's spokesperson Ari Fleischer "the president praised the crown prince's ideas regarding the full Arab-Israeli normalization once a comprehensive peace agreement has been reached." Though the president later stressed that it could only be implemented with the cessation of terrorist attacks against Israel.His successor, Barack Obama expressed praise in the spirit, but not support of its details, for the Initiative in the first days of his presidency. In an interview with Al-Arabiya network on January 27, 2009, he said:
George Mitchell, then the United States special envoy to the Middle East, announced in March 2009 that President Barack Obama's administration intends to "incorporate" the initiative into its Middle East policy.