Arab Peace Initiative (2002)

Summary: In March 2002 heads of Arab states gathered for an annual summit in Beirut adopted a resolution, proposed by Saudi Arabia, that offered to recognize the right of Israel to exist in return for withdrawal from occupied territory on the West Bank and Gaza and for division of Jerusalem into Israeli and Palestinian quarters. The resolution became known as the Arab Initiative. It was largely ignored by both Israel and the United States. Five years later, in 2007, Arab heads of state reaffirmed their acceptance of the so-called two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In 2008 some Israeli politicians took a second look at the Arab Initiative and suggested that it could form the basis for negotiations to end the half-century old war which had gradually been subsumed by the growing conflict between Shiite Iran and the Sunni states of the Arabian peninsula.

At the annual Arab summit meeting in March 2002, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz presented the outlines of a comprehensive peace agreement between Arab states and Israel. The proposal became known as the Arab Initiative, and was readopted five years later, in 2007. After initially rejecting at least two of the proposal's key points-withdrawal from all territory captured in the 1967 Six Day War and the right of Palestinians to return to their homes-in 2008 Israel's president, Shimon Peres, suggested that the Saudi proposal could form the basis for a peace agreement.

When it was put forward in 2002, the proposal marked the first time that Arab states as a group offered to recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. Previously, some Arab states-Egypt and Jordan-had negotiated peace agreements with Israel, but as a whole the Arab nations had maintained their position from 1948, that a Jewish state should not be carved from the former British Palestine Mandate created after World War I.

For the government of Israel in 2002, headed by former general Ariel Sharon, a conservative, the circumstances of the time were not viewed as conducive to accepting a withdrawal from territory on the West Bank and Gaza Strip captured in 1967. The Palestinian al Aqsa Intifada (see separate Background Information Summary in this database) was in full swing, marked by demonstrations, strikes, and repeated guerrilla/terrorist attacks by Hamas and elements of Fatah aimed both at Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank and inside Israel. During 2000, peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority had foundered over details of an Israeli withdrawal from captured territory and the issue of Jerusalem, which the Palestinians insisted be divided between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

A year later, when the Arab Initiative was adopted, it was given short shrift by both Israel and the administration of President George Bush, which was largely distracted by the war on terrorism in the wake of Al Qaeda's attacks of September 11, 2001. The main focus of Israel's reaction was on the three conditions for peace laid out in the initiative:

• Complete withdrawal from all territory captured in the 1967 war, including Jewish settlements on the West Bank and in Gaza and the Golan Heights (claimed by Syria and officially annexed by Israel). The Arab Initiative couched this proposal in the context of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, adopted in November 1967, in the wake of the Six Day War the previous June. Resolution 242 called for "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" and for "termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."
• The right of Palestinians displaced from their homes at the founding of Israel in 1948 to return. The Arab Initiative specifically called for "a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194." That resolution, adopted on December 11, 1948, included a clause stating that the Security Council "Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity…." This was widely viewed in Israel as likely to lead to an overwhelming Arab majority within Israel, as well as to claims upon property long held by Jewish citizens of Israel.
• The division of Jerusalem into Jewish and Arab quarters, with the city serving as capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state. Conservative Israelis had long rejected the idea of dividing the city-viewed as a holy place by Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike-and insisted that a unified Jerusalem remain the capital of Israel.

From another viewpoint, the Arab Initiative served as acceptance of Resolution 242 by those Arab states that had yet to accept explicitly the right of Israel to exist, sometimes referred to as the "two-state solution" to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Inside the Arab Initiative was the sentence: "Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties, the council: 1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well." This marked a turnabout from a resolution adopted by Arab states in the aftermath of the 1967 war which listed the "main principles by which the Arab States abide, namely, no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country."

Reaffirmation. In March 2007, at an Arab summit held in Riyadh, the Arab states, acting under the rubric of the Arab League, reaffirmed the proposals of the 2002 initiative. By this time, the circumstances surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict had changed. The al Aqsa Intifada was over. Palestinians were divided between Fatah on the West Bank, which favored a peace treaty with Israel, and Hamas in Gaza, which rejected the idea of recognizing Israel. The Shiite government of Iran had, in the course of the Iraq war that began in March 2003, significantly increased its influence over the government in Baghdad, giving rise to concerns among some Sunni-dominated states (notably Saudi Arabia) about a future Sunni-Shiite conflict in the region of the Gulf. Iran was also accused of providing support for Hamas, which rejected acceptance of Israel's right to exist, and by so doing had effectively thwarted conclusion of a Palestinian-Israeli settlement. The hard-line Israeli government of the Likud Party had been replaced by a more moderate regime led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of the Kadima Party. In the United States public support for the war in Iraq had virtually disappeared, giving rise to expectations that an anti-war Democratic Party might win the White House in 2008.

Support for the initiative was also expressed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, both of whom toured the Middle East to try to build support for peace negotiations and the Arab initiative, which Ban described as "one of the pillars of the peace process."

Reconsideration. Many analysts concluded that in the period 2002-2008, the dynamics of the Middle East conflict had shifted significantly, away from a focus on Israel and the Palestinians and towards a perceived threat from Iran, as well as challenges to some Arab regimes by the fundamentalists represented by Al Qaeda.

During 2008 Israel held talks with Syria, mediated by Turkey, aimed at a possible bilateral peace agreement. Syria, which was one of the major combatants in the 1967 war and which had long resisted a peace agreement with Israel, had been considered by most analysts a key to ending both the longstanding conflict with Israel and also the ongoing internal conflicts in Lebanon. The Israel-Syria talks were suspended in mid-2008 when Prime Minister Olmert came under fire and was forced to resign in the wake of an unrelated corruption scandal.

The hiatus was viewed as a setback in the talks with Syria, as was the continuing resistance of Hamas to stopping the cross-border shelling of Israeli towns. By autumn 2008, though, some leading Israeli political leaders began calling for reconsideration of the Arab Initiative as the possible basis for a comprehensive peace agreement in the region. President Peres was quoted in November 2008 as describing the Arab initiative as "a serious opening for real progress."

The Arab Initiative

Official translation of the Saudi resolution adopted by Arab heads of state on March 28, 2002:

The Council of Arab States at the Summit Level at its 14th Ordinary Session, reaffirming the resolution taken in June 1996 at the Cairo Extra-Ordinary Arab Summit that a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is the strategic option of the Arab countries, to be achieved in accordance with international legality, and which would require a comparable commitment on the part of the Israeli government.

Having listened to the statement made by his royal highness Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, crown prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in which his highness presented his initiative calling for full Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967, in implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, reaffirmed by the Madrid Conference of 1991 and the land-for-peace principle, and Israel's acceptance of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, in return for the establishment of normal relations in the context of a comprehensive peace with Israel.

Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties, the council:

1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.
2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:

I- 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.

II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

III- 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.

3. Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following:

I- Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.

II- Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.

• 4. Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian partition which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.
• 5. Calls upon the government of Israel and all Israelis to accept this initiative in order to safeguard the prospects for peace and 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.
• 6. Invites the international community and all countries and organizations to support this initiative.
• 7. Requests the chairman of the summit to form a special committee composed of some of its concerned member states and the secretary general of the League of Arab States to pursue the necessary contacts to gain support for this 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.