Arab Peace Initiative

The challenge

Spring 2002 was one of the bloodiest times of the Second Intifada, and talks were frozen. On 27 March, while the summit met, a terror attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya, claimed by Hamas, murdered 30 Israeli civilians. Two days later the Israeli army launched Operation Defensive Shield in the cities of the West Bank.¹

The initiative tried to change the sums: for Israel, peace with the whole Arab world rather than one neighbour; for the Palestinians and Syria, full withdrawal as the price.²

Yasser Arafat did not make it to Beirut. Sharon said Israel might not let him return, and the Palestinian cabinet replied that he would not accept Israeli conditions.³

The road there

1. 27 March 2002A terror attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya murders 30 Israeli civilians; two days later Operation Defensive Shield begins.¹
2. 28 March 2002The Arab League summit in Beirut adopts the initiative proposed by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.²
3. 29 March 2007The League summit in Riyadh reaffirms a just and comprehensive peace as the Arab states' strategic choice, in line with the initiative.⁴
4. 25 July 2007The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan come to Israel on the League's behalf to present the initiative.⁵
5. 29 April 2013A League delegation in Washington backs minor, agreed land swaps.⁶
6. 29 July 2025The New York Declaration commits to building support for peace, among other means through the Arab Peace Initiative.⁷

The people

Negotiated

Marwan Muasher

Proposed

Abdullah bin Abdulaziz (then Saudi Crown Prince)

What was proposed

• Full Israeli withdrawal from the Arab territories occupied in 1967, including the Golan Heights to the line of 4 June 1967 and the territory it still held in southern Lebanon.²⁸
• A just and agreed solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 194.²⁸
• An independent, sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.²⁸
• In return: the Arab states would consider the Arab–Israeli conflict ended, sign a peace agreement with Israel and establish normal relations with it.²⁸
• The initiative rejects any permanent resettlement of refugees in host countries that conflicts with their special circumstances.²⁸

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The geography

The hard decisions

• For the Arab states, too, it was a hard step. Marwan Muasher, who helped draft it and became Jordan's foreign minister that year, writes that disagreements at the summit had to be overcome before it passed unanimously.⁹
• According to the Washington Institute, Israeli reservations centred on Resolution 194 on refugees and on the demand for full withdrawal to the 1967 lines on every front.⁶
• Israel also objected that the League never sent a full delegation to discuss it.⁶ The League's answer was the 2007 visit of the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers, which Israel's foreign ministry called the first delegation under its auspices.⁵
• Israeli reactions varied: Ehud Olmert praised the initiative and Tzipi Livni voiced support, while Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu were more reserved.⁶
• The text is short and general: no security arrangements, maps, timetable or implementation mechanism.²

Where accounts differ

According to The Arab League

The initiative is a comprehensive offer: peace and normal relations with all Arab states in return for full withdrawal, a Palestinian state and an agreed solution for the refugees.² At the Riyadh summit in 2007 the Arab states reaffirmed it as their strategic choice.⁴

According to Marwan Muasher, Jordan's foreign minister in 2002–2004, who took part in drafting the initiative

Israel's government rejected the offer outright and put forward no ideas of its own; its objection to Resolution 194 ignores the requirement that a refugee solution be agreed; and US support was lukewarm. He grants that the criticism that the Arab states did not explain the offer directly to Israelis has some merit.⁹

According to Israeli reservations, as described by the Washington Institute and NPR

Resolution 194 and full withdrawal on every front are not acceptable as preconditions.⁶ In 2007 Israel welcomed the initiative as a basis for talks, but rejected full withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and what it read as a call for the return of the 1948 refugees and their descendants.⁵

What remains open

• The Abraham Accords of 2020 showed that Arab states can establish relations with Israel before the initiative's conditions are met. How much force it keeps as a collective offer is an open question.
• In 2013 a League delegation accepted the principle of minor, agreed land swaps,⁶ but the text of the initiative itself was not amended.²

Photos, videos and quotes

2002Watch here: The Arab Peace Initiative: aims and results

The Arab Peace Initiative: aims and results

28 March 2002 · AlQahera News - القاهرة الإخبارية

It offered Arab normalisation with Israel in return for withdrawal and a Palestinian state, and remains a reference point in regional debate.