After 20 years on, time for new API

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Twenty years ago, in the midst of the al-Aqsa Intifada, Arab leaders convened in Beirut for their annual summit and adopted the Arab Peace Initiative (API). The move followed the failure to reach a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, a freeze in relations with Arab states that had forged ties with Israel during the 1990s peace process, and an Israeli conviction that there is not partner for peace on the other side of the conflict. It presented a ray of hope in a dreary landscape.

The API, conceived by Saudi Arabia, offered Israel regional belonging, normal ties with all Arab countries, and a sense of security in exchange for resolving conflicts with the Palestinians and Syria. It presented the Israeli leadership and public with an incentive to make peace, addressing Israel’s long-standing yearning to shake off its regional isolation and to be accepted in its neighborhood.

The API, however, did not bring the desired peace. A large majority of Israelis never heard of it. Most of those who did, were not aware of its actual content. And many of those who are aware, tend to focus on reasons to reject it or question its credibility. Consecutive Israeli governments never formally responded to the initiative. Despite occasional behind-the-scenes overtures, Israeli leaders generally chose to ignore the API. Some of them even spoke out against it, because of their opposition to the two state solution it entailed.

The Arab League ratified the API repeatedly over the years and emphasized its commitment to it, even during periods of Israeli-Palestinian escalation, instability in the Arab world, and the rise of political Islam in the Middle East and North Africa. However, Arab states did invest much in marketing it to Israelis and displayed only limited willingness to adapt its wording to changing circumstances.

The international community, for its part, welcomed the API and recognized its potential, but failed to incorporate it into a broader international package of peace incentives, which could have also included US security guarantees and an upgrade of ties with the EU.

And so, the API turned along the years into a missed opportunity, with mounting questions about its relevance. First, it was the Syrian civil war, which made the initiative’s clause calling for Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights unrealistic under the circumstances. Second, the 2020 normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries reflected an Israeli right-wing success of significantly de-linking the normalization of ties with Arab states from progress towards the two state solution.

The Negev Summit, held exactly on the 20th anniversary of the API, expresses the type of normal relations envisioned by the initiative. However, the Palestinians were not invited to the event and the Palestinian issue is not high on its agenda. This led Jordan to skip the festive meeting. The summit coincides with a particularly low period for the Palestinians, with delays in European aid to the Palestinian Authority, US calls for internal Palestinian reforms, widespread Palestinian distrust of its leadership, and the continuation of the ongoing split between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip although the government in Jerusalem no longer wishes to preserve it.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-702558