In those circumstances, Israel would have to "leave it." In return for peace, the plan states for example for the following:
Resolution 194 states that all refugees willing to live in peace with their neighbors should be able to return. There is no evidence that the Arab Palestinian refugees in Lebanon or those in the Gaza strip are willing to leave in peace with anybody, leave alone
Jews. According to the Arab interpretation of the resolution however, the resolution confers on every Arab Palestinian refugee, their descendants, their foreign spouses and anyone who claims to have been a refugee or descendant thereof, the right to "return" to "Palestine" even if they never lived in Palestine. The Palestinian Arab refugees are the only class of refugees in the world to which the UN grants refugee status to children of refugees, or to refugees who were enemy belligerents and their descendants who remain so.
Return of refugees would destroy Israel as a Jewish state, since there are potentially an unlimited number of claimants to refugee status, and since in the best case, it would introduced a highly belligerent population into the state, bent on its destruction.
No place in the Arab Peace Plan does it state that the Arabs countries would undertake to recognize
Israel as a
Jewish state or to recognize the right of the Jewish people to self-determination, or even to admit that there is such a thing as a Jewish people.
The behavior of the Arab states at the Annapolis peace conference was a lot closer to Ibn Saud's original conception of the
Jews than to the supposed spirit of the Arab peace initiative. Israeli delegates had to use the service entrance to the conference building, an affront in which the "pro-Israel" US administration acquiesced, and Arabs refused to shake hands with Israelis. An
Arab Human Rights charter that is gaining the approval of Arab countries, states in its preamble that it "rejects all forms of Zionism and Racism." The charter was originally supported by the UN's Louise Arbour, but she has had second thoughts.
In the best case, the Arab Peace Initiative is meant as a mind changer in the Arab world. By thinking out of the box, the Saudis seek to regain leadership of the Arab world. If they can get peace in the
Middle East and retrieve the Golan Heights for Syria, they become the "go to" country in the Middle East for all the Arabs, and for the United States as well. With the Israeli-Palestinian issue off the table, they can present a united front in dealing with Iran and the challenge posed by
Shia Islam. The Saudis, on the face of it, have a genuine interest in the success of the peace initiative, as do the Egyptians and the Jordanians, client states of the United States who have signed peace treaties with Israel. But the initiative is designed intentionally to be ambiguous. Other Arab states can accept it as a means of carrying on the fight against the "Zionist Entity" by other means. It is also useful as a weapon in the "peace wars." In this conflict, whoever can show that they are in favor of peace, wins an advantage, even if their proposals are hollow. The principle involved is to make a plan that looks quite a lot like a peace plan, but is certainly going to be rejected by the other side, so that the other side will be embarrassed and shown up as an "obstacle to peace."
The Arab League has no binding authority over its member states. They have offered no mechanism for implementing the plan. Their stated position is that Israel must first fulfill all the conditions and then the individual states will (or will not) grant recognition to Israel, depending on whether they believe Israel has implemented the conditions, on the weather in Riyadh and the moods of Muammar Kaddafi, dictator of Libya. The Arab League is
Arab, and not
Muslim, a distinction that seems to escape many people. Therefore, the statement that the plan would bring Israel recognition by 57 Muslim states, which appears in many newspapers, is nonsensical. Iran, for example, is a
Muslim country, but it is NOT a member of the Arab League. It frequently is in opposition to the Arab League. Iran controls
Hamas, Hezbollah the
Islamic Jihad and probably the
Popular Resistance Committees, all groups opposed to any sort of two state solution and to the very existence of Israel. It is not likely they will be joining in the Arab peace plan any time soon.
The Palestinian Authority
placed advertisements in Israeli newspapers to "explain" the plan to Israelis, as if we didn't understand what it means and does not mean. A juicy canard in the London Times claimed that US President elect Barack Obama supports the Arab Peace Plan and wants to force it on Israel, but this was quickly
denied by Dennis Ross.
U.S. pressure on Israel is never good for Israel, and pressure to accept the Arab peace plan "as is" would be contrary to the interests of the United States and certainly contrary to the interests of Israel, which is not interested in committing suicide. Curiously, M.J. Rosenberg, who places himself in the Zionist camp, has
"advised" President-elect Obama that the first thing he has to do is adopt the Arab Peace initiative and ram it down Israel's throat. Suppose Israel would propose a plan whereby all the Arab states sign peace treaties with Israel first, and then Israel will negotiate withdrawal from occupied territories? Would M.J. Rosenberg consider that a plan that should be adopted by the United States? Suppose the Israeli plan added that each oil rich Arab state must accept millions of Christian immigrants as citizens, as well as paying compensation to all the Jewish refugees from Arab countries?
The United States doesn't have to have a policy about a peace initiative that is addressed to Israel. It is never a good idea to volunteer. Israel, however, must have a policy about the Arab peace initiative. Those tempted to "just say no" should think again. There might be an opportunity to change hearts and minds here - a long shot. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's peace initiative was incredible as well, but it turned out to be fairly real, though defective in implementation. Even on the supposition that the Arab peace initiative is a total fraud, it has achieved such prominence that it cannot be ignored. Peace with our Arab neighbors has always been a number one goal of Zionism and the hope for peace must not be abandoned. Without peace, there is no long term future for Israel in the Middle East. Perhaps Israel should accept the spirit of the initiative and ask for clarifications. In that spirit, the editors of the Jerusalem Post, acknowledging the deficiencies of the Arab initiative,
wrote:
Or perhaps, instead of these vague pronouncements, Israel should daily offer peace, loud and clear.Each day, the Israel Foreign Ministry should call upon the Arabs to clarify the conditions of the initiative, to set a date for a peace conference that will allow the exploration of the initiative, rather than vaguely calling for exploration. We should not let this issue alone for a day. The world must see our dedication to peace. Muammar Ghaddafi and Bashar Assad are all invited to recognize the right of self determination of the Jewish people and our right to a Jewish state, as we have, in the various agreements, recognized the right of the Palestinian Arabs to their Arab state. If the Arabs are sincere they will answer the call. Muammar and Bashar and Abdullah are all invited to break bread and to shake hands and we shall go forward to a bright future together. Perhaps it will happen. The entire Middle East will beat their swords into plowshares and their Qassam rockets into mailing tubes, fulfilling the vision of the prophets of old. But what if the Arab states are not sincere? What if they are not willing to shake hands with Jews or to accept the legitimacy of Zionism? What if the lion is not yet ready to lie down with the lamb? In that case, we will have called their bluff in a way that even M. J. Rosenberg can understand.
Ami Isseroff
Zionism and the Arab Peace Initiative (Ami Isseroff)
