ORG Meeting on the Arab Peace Initiative

An expert roundtable to give the Arab Peace Initiative (API) a higher profile was organised by Oxford Research Group (ORG) from 15-17th October 2008. Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Chairman of the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies opened the meeting. Speaking in a personal capacity, Prince Turki said that every Arab state has, in endorsing the Arab Peace Initiative, "made clear that they will pay the price for peace, not only by recognising Israel as a legitimate state in the area, but also to normalise relations with it and end the state of hostilities that had existed since 1948."  Experts from the Arab world, Israel and the international community took part in the discussions.

The API was proposed by 22 Arab countries who concluded that a durable peace would have to be comprehensive and involve all Arab states to ensure the security of both Israelis and Palestinians. When API was initially offered to Israel in 2002, it was the height of the second Intifada. Such was the level of mistrust on both sides that the offer went unheard. It was reaffirmed by the Arab League in Riyadh in 2007 and in Damascus in 2008.

There has however been a recent interest in the API in Israel and this has coincided with the realisation that the Israel-Palestine conflict cannot be resolved without reference to its regional context. As was evident in the recent Doha summit, the opportunity presented by the API may not be on the table indefinitely. The API provides the possibility to re-conceptualise the conflict not as an obstacle to peace and development in the Middle East but as a catalyst for transforming relations within the region.

At the ORG roundtable, it became clear that the following areas needed further in-depth work if the API would be seen as a credible pointer to the end game of the conflict:

Careful consultation work will need to be done with the Islamist groups as to what would make it possible for them to give their support to the API

• The settlements in the West Bank are currently an obstacle to any movement on the Arab Peace Initiative. A consultation process with the leadership of the settlers' movement as to what would act to provide an incentive to support the API.
• Further work needs to be done on what agreement could be reached on the issue of the Palestinian refugees. As of yet, there is no sufficient understanding of what such an agreement may look like and what is meant by the reference to an agreed solution on the refugees issue in the API.
• Up until now Israel's official position on the API has been lukewarm. Instead of ciriticizing the API as it has currently done from an official government position, Israel could be more proactive in presenting its own Israel Peace Initiative. This would then give scope at future negotiations to identify the areas for disagreement and compromise.

What is the Arab Peace Initiative?

The Arab Peace Initiative (API) was first formally presented by the Saudi Crown Prince, now King Abdallah, at the Arab League Summit in Beirut, March 2002.

By backing the initiative, the Arab world took a bold step in which it acknowledged the right of the Israeli people to live in peace and security alongside other people in the region.

What does the API offer?
According to Marwan Muasher, the former Jordanian Ambassador to Israel and one of the API’s most foremost proponents, it is ‘a proactive effort on behalf of 22 Arab nations to solve the conflict by not only addressing Arab needs but also the needs of the Israelis.”

The API is a collective offer to end the conflict, with security guarantees for all states in the region including Israel. This is significant because for the first time Israel is assured that its security will be guaranteed not only by its neighbours, but by all Arab states.

Also for the first time, the Arab world has committed itself to an agreed solution to the refugee problem, addressing Israel's concern that Arabs will demand that four million refugees be sent to Israel. The 22 Arab countries agree to:

• Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended.
• Enter into a peace agreement with Israel and provide security for all the states of the region.
• Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of a comprehensive peace

They call upon Israel to affirm:

• Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.
• Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.
• The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
   

The tragic timing
On the opening day of the Beirut Summit, March 27 2002, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 20 people celebrating Passover in Netanya in Israel. It became known as the Passover massacre. Over the next four days, 17 people were killed in two further suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Haifa. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon immediately launched a huge military operation in the West Bank – the biggest since June 1967. There were many casualties, and the precise casualty figures have never been agreed.

The circumstances surrounding the launch of the API were therefore far from ideal. The elation felt by those who had worked to create the API was short-lived as their plans to start engaging with the Israelis and western publics suffered a severe setback. Neither the Israeli government nor the US administration endorsed the plan.

The API Revived
Since its launch, the API has been subsequently reaffirmed by the Arab league at its summits in 2007 and 2008 in Riyadh and Damascus respectively. This has, as yet, failed to excite public opinion in Israel.

The API arguably provides Israel with what it has been seeking since its inception. It has been said that such a proposal, had it been put forward several years ago, would have had Israelis dancing in the streets. Why, then, has it had them barely stirring in their seats? It has been said that opinion in Israel towards the API ranges between those who have never heard of it, and those who don’t believe a word of it.

It has also not had much impact in the wider international arena, despite holding out the promise of full peace and normal relations with Israel in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the territories it captured in 1967.

The Joint Understanding issued at the Annapolis Summit on 27 November 2008 failed to mention the API. However, the Israeli PM at the time Ehud Olmert said, ‘I value this initiative. I acknowledge its importance and I highly appreciate its contribution. I have no doubt that we will continue to refer to it in the course of negotiations between us and the Palestinian leadership” (Ha’aretz 28 November 2007).

There are now signs of a greater recognition of the value of the API as part of a broader peace initiative.

On the face of it, the API reflects a dramatic shift in the Arab position from the famous three ‘no’s’ of Khartoum in September 1967 as President Shimon Peres has noted at his speech at the UN in September 2008, and also in his speech opening the Knesset Winter session on 27 October 2008. 
 

The President said:
“We must pay heed to the voices of all comers from Arab states and the Muslim world, calling to put an end to conflict in the Middle East and to arrive at peace.

The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 put an end to the unity of the Arab League states around the policy of Khartoum, that is to say, nay to recognition, nay to negotiations, nay to peace.

Now the answer of the Arabs is "yes!" Yes to peace with Israel! There is no ignoring the positive change even if we do not accept all of the phrasing in the Arab Initiative. It is fitting that we examine how we can include the whole Arab world in a comprehensive peace process that will be stronger and more credible.

The price of a comprehensive agreement, in its conclusion, will not exceed the price that Israel paid or agreed to pay in negotiations in separate negotiations with all the states individually. But the overall compensation will be of great value- the end of the conflict in all of the Middle East, and normal relations with all of the Arab states.”

Crucially, with the impending election of a new US President and a new Israeli government, the API has become all the more relevant in the context of insufficient progress and a stagnating process one year after Annapolis.

The Initiative Still Stands
In his article, ‘The Initiative Still Stands’ in Haaretz on August 19 2008, Marwan Muasher writes:

 “Today, six years after its adoption, and despite continued violence and the stagnation of the peace process, the Arab Peace Initiative still holds.

“By now, the gradual approach to peacemaking has been exhausted. As we have witnessed, this approach allowed the opponents of peace ample time not only to derail the process, but to threaten its proponents, which they have done repeatedly and effectively. The time has come to jettison the incremental approach, and take the leap toward a comprehensive settlement whose outlines have been largely defined via a number of frameworks, starting with the Clinton parameters. Separate peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians or the Syrians might not adequately address the conflict's key dimensions, such as the positions of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran regarding those agreements.

A comprehensive agreement with the Arab world, in which the Arab Peace Initiative serves as a key term of reference, would address all Arab aspirations, including an end to the occupation and the establishment of a two-state solution, as well as Israel's security and other needs. In the context of such a comprehensive agreement with the whole Arab world, the role of non-state players such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and even of their backer Iran, becomes marginal.”

Read more on the API:
Elie Podeh “The Arab Peace Initiative: A Missed Opportunity?" The Palestine-Israel Journal 2007

Shafeeq Ghabra "The Arab Peace Initiative" Gulfwire Perspective, November 2003