OxfordResearchGroup building bridges for global security The Arab Peace Initiative: Why Now? One year on from Annapolis – the need for a regional frame for negotiations Gabrielle Rifkind Foreword by HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal Executive Summary by Professor Oliver Ramsbotham November 2008 Report following an Oxford Research Group meeting on ‘The Arab Peace Initiative as a Possible Exit from the Current Impasse: What needs to happen’ 15-17 October 2008, Oxfordshire, UK Published by Oxford Research Group, November 2008 Oxford Research Group Development House 56-64 Leonard Street London EC2A 4LT United Kingdom Copyright © Oxford Research Group, 2008 Some rights reserved. This paper is licensed under a Creative Commons licence that allows copy and distribution for non-profit use, provided the author and ORG are attributed properly and the work is not altered in any way. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ for full details. Please contact Oxford Research Group if you would like to translate this report. About the report This report is based on an expert roundtable, which was organised by Oxford Research Group (ORG) on 15-17 October 2008 at Charney Manor, Oxfordshire, UK, to give the Arab Peace Initiative (API) a higher profile. 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. The Executive Summary aims to reflect the broad mood of the meeting. The rest of the report also draws on interviews and discussions that took place on the fringes of the meeting and during its preparation. There is no claim that all participants are in agreement on every point. About the author Gabrielle Rifkind is Human Security Consultant to Oxford Research Group, where she directs the Middle East Programme. She is a group analyst and specialist in conflict resolution, and co-directs the EU Partnership for Peace project at ORG. Executive Summary Oliver Ramsbotham is Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford (UK), Chair of the Oxford Research Group, and President of the Conflict Research Society. Acknowledgements Oxford Research Group gratefully acknowledges the support of the European Union’s Partnership for Peace programme in funding the roundtable on the Arab Peace Initiative in October 2008. ORG also acknowledges the ongoing support of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT), the Polden- Puckham Charitable Foundation (PPCF), the RH Southern Trust and the 1970 Trust. The author would like to thank Ahmed Badawi, Dr. Orit Gal, Dr. Tony Klug, Dr. John Sloboda and Chris Langdon for their support in the organisation of the meeting in Oxford and in the writing of the report. She would also like to thank Monika Barthwal-Datta for her diligent, quiet administration of the meeting, Refqa Abu-Remaileh for her thorough rapporteuring, Chris Abbott for managing the production of the report and Andy Roberts for his financial administration of the meeting. www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk The Arab Peace Initiative: Why Now? One year on from Annapolis – the need for a regional frame for negotiations Gabrielle Rifkind November 2008 The consensus of the meeting was that the API offers the outline of an agreement that is very much in the strategic interest of Israel. It was seen as a deal that the founders of the State of Israel would surely have embraced with characteristic boldness, and negotiated with vigour. Participants agreed that there is no alternative framework that does or can effectively guarantee the future of a Jewish democratic state on 78% of mandate Palestine within a context of regional recognition and cooperation. In the words of one participant, the API offers to “provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity” after 60 years of conflict and bloodshed. OxfordResearchGroup OxfordResearchGroup | The Arab Peace Initiative: Why Now? Contents Foreword by HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal 3 Executive Summary by Oliver Ramsbotham 4 Recommendations 7 Figure 1: Required strategies to harness the potential for the 8 Arab Peace Initiative and establish a stable negotiating process Setting the scene 9 The current situation 9 Context of current conflict environment 10 Figure 2: Current conflict environment 11 Tragic timing for the launch of the API in 2002 11 What does the API offer? 12 Saudi opening remarks 13 Israeli responses 13 Arab responses 15 Responses from the international community 16 British perspective 16 The role of the European Union 17 The role of the US administration 17 Hamas and the API 17 New political architecture post-Annapolis 19 Conclusions 20 Endnotes 20 Appendix 1: The Arab Peace Initiative 21 Appendix 2: Interview with Amr Moussa 23 Appendix 3: Media activity immediately after the meeting 23 2 OxfordResearchGroup | The Arab Peace Initiative: Why Now? Foreword by HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies and former Saudi Ambassador to London and Washington When Gabrielle Rifkind asked me to join a small roundtable discussion group on the Abdullah Peace Initiative I immediately accepted her invitation and said: “I will do as you wish”. I had worked with Gabrielle on another meeting which took place in Riyadh, and appreciated her seriousness and dedication. She informed me that there were going to be Israelis involved and I asked if they were officials or not. It would not have been appropriate with officials there.. The Abdullah Peace Initiative is the vision for a future peace between the Arab world and Israel that is based on a quid pro quo: Israel will withdraw totally from all occupied Arab land, including East Jerusalem as the capital of a sovereign Palestinian state, in return for total Arab recognition, end of hostilities, and normalisation between all the Arab states. A settlement for the Palestine refugees would be mutually agreed to by both parties. This proposal became the Arab Peace Initiative in March 2002 at the Arab summit meeting held in Beirut. All the Arab states signed up to the Initiative then and remain committed to it until today. The Hamas attack on Natanya and Ariel Sharon’s invasion of the West Bank eclipsed the Initiative when it was approved in 2002. Ariel Sharon’s dismissal of the Initiative as the “most dangerous” proposition facing Israel, in the words of Sharon’s advisor, Dov Weisglass, equally dampened any enthusiasm in Israel for the Initiative. All the Arab summits held since Beirut have reiterated Arab commitment to the Initiative. Last year, Ehud Olmert expressed guarded and qualified understanding of “elements” of the Initiative, as he said, and, last September, at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, Shimon Peres saw positive elements in the “spirit” of the Initiative. These are encouraging signs from Israeli officials, but they show misunderstanding of the Initiative. Henry Seigman has expressed the view that the Initiative is not a plan that can be negotiated. Rather it is a view of the end result of negotiation. He is right. What has allowed the Initiative to withstand Israeli rejection, and American and European lack of interest is the soundness and viability of the Initiative. It is the clarity of the Initiative’s vision, that is now bringing it to Israeli and worldwide appreciation and interest. The positive response of the Israelis who joined the discussion group is an encouraging sign that, as Israelis become more aware of the quid pro quo offered by the Initiative, they will see the great opportunity that this vision of a final and definitive peace between Israel and the Arab world offers. Turki Al Faisal 3 OxfordResearchGroup | The Arab Peace Initiative: Why Now? Executive Summary President The Arab Peace Initiative (API), proposed in March 2002 by all 22 members of the Arab League, offered a definitive end to the Arab-Israeli conflict, full recognition for the State of Israel, and the Shimon Peres establishment of normal relations and mutual guarantees of future security. In exchange, the API has appealed for asked for full Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in June 1967, including Syrian and Lebanese Israel to “stop territories, a just settlement to the Palestinian refugee problem ‘to be agreed upon’ in accordance holding separate with UN General Assembly Resolution 194, and the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. negotiations and go for a regional The meeting recognised the API as a remarkable and historic document, effectively reversing the peace agreement three ‘noes’ of the 1967 Khartoum Arab Summit (no peace, no recognition, no negotiation with with the Arab Israel). It is the only regional peace proposal on offer and is widely regarded as the ‘only show in town’ that encompasses the three sets of bilateral negotiations (with Palestinians, Syria, Lebanon) states and the within a comprehensive multilateral framework. It has been reaffirmed most recently at the Arab League”. Damascus summit in 2008. The consensus was that the API offers the outline of an agreement that is very much in the strategic interest of Israel. It was seen as a deal that the founders of the State of Israel would surely have embraced with characteristic boldness, and negotiated with vigour. Participants agreed that there is no alternative framework that does or can effectively guarantee the future of a Jewish democratic state on 78% of mandate Palestine within a context of regional recognition and cooperation. In the words of one participant, the API offers to “provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity” after 60 years of conflict and bloodshed. Yet from March 2002 onwards the API “has been greeted with a yawn by the Israeli government” and has aroused remarkably little public interest in the country.