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Arab Peace Initiative
Arab Peace InitiativeIn October 2008, Oxford Research Group organised a meeting to explore the scope to resuscitate the Arab Peace Initiative (API) by assimilating it into a concerted broader push to finally achieve peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab and Muslim worlds. Present at the roundtable were senior serving and former diplomats and officials who have influence in and access to their own governments in the Arab world, Israel, US and UK. Below is some background information on the API and the promise it holds for breaking the current impasse in the peace process. What is the Arab Peace Initiative? The Arab Peace Initiative 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:
They call upon Israel to affirm:
The full text is available in English here.
The tragic timing On the opening day of the Beirut Summit, 27 March 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 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 Ha'aretz on 19 August 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 The Arab Peace Initiative: A Missed Opportunity? Publications The Arab Peace Initiative: Why Now? |
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