Arab Peace Initiative

The Arab Peace Initiative is a plan for Middle East peace drafted by Saudi Arabia and presented at the 2002 Arab League Summit in Beirut. Endorsed by the 22 Arab League members,

The plan, first made public in a February interview with the New York Times, proposes that the Arab world would fully recognize and normalize relations with Israel in exchange for a withdrawal to the borders that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

The plan rapidly garnered wide support in the Arab world, and won guarded praise from traditional Mideast mediator Washington. Israel, meanwhile, has generally welcomed the Saudi initiative, but rightists have ruled out any concession on the stipulation that the Jewish state return to its pre-war borders.

Palestinian and Lebanese figures have also voiced reservations, noting that the Saudi incentive fails to address the plight of large numbers of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and elsewhere in the world.

Some Arab states, among them Syria, objected to the terminology used in the initiative and the plan was flat out rejected by armed Palestinian groups such as Hamas. After five years of inaction on the plan, it was broached again in the 2007 Arab Summit in Saudi Arabia, and was re-endorsed by Arab nations as well as by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. However, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh abstained from the vote on its endorsement. Arab states tried without success to convince Hamas that acceptance of the initiative would grant it legitimacy.

On the Israeli side, then prime minister Ehud Olmert supported the plan, but the government maintained that several of its points were unacceptable, most notably the call for the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, a move which would effectively create a Palestinian majority in Israel and end its status as a Jewish State. The Arab Peace Initiative is still endorsed by the Arab League, the U.S., EU, and the UN, although a breakdown in peace negotiations and conditions on the ground, especially the conflict between Fatah and Hamas, have seen it sidelined along with other peace proposals.