The Arab Peace Initiative: A Work in Progress

In preparation of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's trip to Washington to meet with President Barack Obama on May 18, Arab states are working on a draft of the Arab Peace Initiative that addresses Israel's concerns. However, there is not a full consensus yet. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said today that there was "no justification for amending" the deal, according to a report in Ha'aretz.

Smadar Peri and Itamar Eichner report in Yediot Acharonoth:

The original Arab peace plan from 2002 is based on the equation of a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders in exchange for "normal relations" with the Arab world and a "just and agreed solution to the Palestinian right of return."  President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak reacted in the past months to the Arab peace plan by emphasizing that "it has positive parts, which should be adopted, and other parts, which should be negotiated."  However, the Arab campmade it clear that "this is the plan, take it in its original form."

Since President Obama's entry into the White House, his advisers have applied pressure to the leaders of the moderate camp in the Arab world to "touch up" and "improve" the plan in order to make it easier for Israel to adopt it.  Now it has become apparent that at the end of the round of meetings in the White House with the leaders of the moderate camp, President Mubarak will present the improved peace plan to President Obama.

The daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi revealed yesterday the main changes in the original peace plan: The Palestinian right of return will be based on resettling refugees in Arab countries and allocating them monetary compensation in exchange.  Those who insist on exercising the right of return, will be given authorization, in coordination with the Palestinian Authority security services, to return solely to the Palestinian territories.  A further revision refers to a land swap between Israel and the PA in order to enable absorption of hundreds of refugees.

The problem of partitioning Jerusalem into two capitals, Israeli and Palestinian, will also be dealt with by means of an interim solution:

The "remodeled" initiative will make it permissible to raise the Israeli flag in Arab countries, in exchange for raising the Palestinian flag in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, in which the Palestinian capital will be established.

Senior political sources in Israel said last night that the upgrade of the Arab initiative constituted a victory for Israel and a sign of the growing concern in the Arab world with regard to the Iranian threat.

The sources said that if indeed the Arab initiative should be upgraded, and the component of the right of return were to be removed from it, this would be a dramatic change that could serve as an opening for launching negotiations between Israel and the Arab world.  Israel would find it difficult to say "no" to such an initiative, said sources in Jerusalem.