Israel: Peace plan developments (pub. March 28, 2007)

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Israel was willing to make "extensive, painful and tough concessions" to secure peace with its Arab neighbours, whilst a 2002 "land-for-peace" initiative (the Arab Peace Initiative--API) could form a "convenient basis" for further negotiations with "Arab moderates", Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert said on March 22, 2007. The comments were made whilst Olmert was addressing a conference of kibbutz volunteers in Tel Aviv (Israel’s second largest city) and marked an apparent change of Israeli attitude towards the API following Israel’s outright rejection of the plan when it was first proposed.

Immediate Context

Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz first proposed the API in February 2002 and it was the centrepiece of an Arab League summit meeting held in Beirut (the capital of Lebanon) in March. The initiative envisaged a full Israeli withdrawal from all Arab territories occupied since 1967, recognition of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, and the achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. In return, the Arab world would declare its conflict with Israel to be at an end and would normalise its relations with the Jewish state.

A series of initiatives designed to end the protracted Arab-Israeli conflict had been proposed since the al-Aqsa Intifada (uprising) erupted in October 2000, but none had achieved a lasting or comprehensive peace settlement. In January 2001 Israeli and Palestinian negotiators resumed "final status" talks in the Egyptian resort of Taba, but the talks broke down, failing to yield any breakthroughs. The so-called "road map", formally launched in April 2003 by the Middle East Quartet (the EU, Russia, the UN, and the USA) and aimed at achieving peace and a Palestinian state by 2005, was accepted by the Israelis and Palestinians in May 2003 but Israel ended negotiations in August after a Palestinian suicide bombing attacked a Jerusalem bus. An unofficial Middle East peace plan launched in December 2003, known as the Geneva Initiative and containing all the elements of a final "two state" settlement of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, was followed in January 2004 by an escalation of the conflict in the non-occupied territories of Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine.

Meanwhile, the Syrian track of the Middle East peace process had remained in deadlock (principally over the issue of the return of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights), whilst an Israeli military campaign against targets in Lebanon in July 2006 served as a brutal reminder of the pressing need to find a permanent and peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Reaction and Outlook

On March 22, 2007, Prime Minister Olmert reportedly described the API as "interesting", adding that he was willing to accept "many" of its terms but "not all of them". Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that the API was "the most strategic and most important initiative that came from the Arab world since 1948" and he hoped that Israel would "accept these invitations" and be Palestine’s "partner in peace".

The revival of Israeli interest in the API was regarded by some observers to have resulted from the lack of meaningful progress made during recent talks between Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The API was reportedly one of the principal issues to be discussed by regional leaders at an Arab League summit being hosted in Riyadh (the capital of Saudi Arabia) on March 28-29.

Historical context

In 1917, during World War I, the UK government issued the "Balfour Declaration", in which the Jewish Diaspora was promised a "national home in Palestine" which would not violate the rights of non-Jewish communities living in the territory. Jewish immigration to Palestine had subsequently increased by the early 1930s (partly because of a rise in Europe of anti-semitism), prompting a wave of nationalist sentiment amongst Palestinian Arabs. By the mid-1930s simmering tensions between Jews and Arabs over control of the Palestinian territory had led to a series of violent confrontations between the two groups, during which an estimated 5,000 Arabs and 300 Jews were killed.

When the UK authorities left Palestine in 1948, after the UN had agreed in 1947 a plan for the partition of Palestine, the leaders of the Jewish National Council declared Israel an independent Jewish state. Almost immediately afterwards Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia declared war on Israel, leading to an Arab invasion (the 1948 Arab-Israeli War) of the newly declared Jewish state. Armistice agreements, signed in 1949, failed to secure a permanent solution and in October 1956 Israel invaded the Sinai peninsula in Egypt and occupied the territory for several months, in collaboration with the UK and France (the Suez Crisis), before withdrawing in the face of international criticism. During the "Six Day War" in June 1967, Israel again captured the Sinai peninsula (and Gaza) from Egypt, and also took control of the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. In response the UN adopted Security Council Resolution 242, calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the establishment of peace. During the "Yom Kippur War" in October 1973, Egypt regained control of the Suez Canal but Israel retained its occupation of the Golan Heights.

Despite the signing of peace accords with Egypt in March 1979 and with Jordan in October 1994, Israel’s relations in the Arab world remained volatile and the Middle East was widely regarded as the world’s most dangerous flashpoint.

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