CAIRO — I was traveling from Beirut to Cairo, and reading Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s statement that it is impossible for Israel to accept the 2002 Arab Summit peace initiative in its current version. I was thinking what a shame it was that she could not make the same trip I just made — between the Arab capital in Lebanon, where the 2002 Arab peace initiative was formally launched, and the Egyptian capital, which made peace with Israel a quarter of a century ago.
Beirut to Cairo is a significant journey in a symbolic way: Lebanon is where some Arabs actively defy and fight Israel, and last summer fought it to a draw (at a very high cost to all Lebanese, to be sure). Cairo made its peace with Israel a generation ago, but it has proven to be a peace of Egyptian government bureaucrats and American mediators, more than a genuine resolution of a historic conflict.
For the past generation, the simple lesson of visiting Egypt and talking to senior officials and ordinary people alike has been that Israel can prompt some Arab countries to make peace, but it will not enjoy true acceptance and lasting peace with the Arab people until it comes to grips with the full extent of its core dispute with the Palestinians. Tzipi Livni ruled out accepting the current Arab peace offer because, she said, of its problematic references to the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.
Jordan and Egypt were able to sign full peace agreements with Israel because their accords were not complicated by the Palestine refugees issue. This issue cannot be addressed with traditional clichés on both sides. Rather, it requires harder work by all concerned parties to find a resolution to the Palestinian refugee issue that adheres to the principles of international law and UN resolutions, but is also politically acceptable to all concerned. This seems to be the last major issue that Palestinians and Israelis cannot resolve, and it is significant that Tzipi Livni singled it out as the reason why Israel could not accept the Arab peace plan.
The Arab summit planned for the end of this month in Saudi Arabia will grapple with this matter once again. A breakthrough seems impossible to achieve today, given the fixed positions on both sides: Arabs demand that Israel unilaterally and a priori accept the Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their original homes and lands, and Israel refuses outright to discuss the issue. Some sort of middle ground must be identified and accepted by both sides.
The Arab summit would do well to clarify its position on options that the Palestinians could accept in the context of a comprehensive peace agreement, leaving it to backroom diplomacy and the formal negotiations to hammer out the details. The Arab summit should not do this unilaterally, though, but rather in a conditional manner that demands of Israel reciprocal steps or statements.
Unilaterally giving Israel what it wants is not a solution. It would be wrong for the Arab summit unilaterally to change the 2002 peace plan to meet the Israeli objections that Livni expressed last weekend. It would be appropriate, however, for the summit to offer Israel a broad package that includes steps that Israelis and Arabs would take together. Reciprocity and simultaneity are powerful partners that could unblock the now stalled peace process. Israel should be offered a comprehensive, permanent peace by the Arabs, but it should also be required to make gestures of its own on the refugee issue that could make such a peace pact possible.
The openings here are not many, but they must be identified more rigorously than has been the case to date. A critical element for Palestinians and Arabs is Israeli acknowledgement of how the birth of the state of Israel was based on the expulsion, exile and disenfranchisement of the Palestinians. Israel’s acceptance of pertinent UN resolutions on this count would be an important step, which would unlock the door for a negotiated agreement that would affirm the refugees’ right of return, compensate them for their losses, and give them full rights in a Palestinian state, while maintaining the majority Jewish nature of the state of Israel and its formal acceptance by its neighbors.
The Arab summit is right to make peace offers to Israel, but it should do so in a manner that realistically entices Israel to engage in serious negotiations while affirming and respecting the refugees’ rights as enshrined in UN resolutions. You only have to travel from Beirut to Cairo, or Beirut to Amman, to appreciate the difference between formal peace agreements that have thin popular support, and a lasting peace based on truly resolving the conflict between Arabs and Israelis.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
Copyright ©2007 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 06 March 2007
Word Count: 789
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