Angeles, father of slain Wall Street Journalist, Daniel Pearl and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation www.danielpearl.org
On the Saudi Peace Initiative
By Judea Pearl
While attending a Muslim-American conference in Doha, Qatar, in 2005, an Arableader asked me at the dinner table: “Tell me, why didn’t Israelis accept the Saudi peace proposal of 2000; in fact, they did not even
respond to it.
Did it not offer them everything that they ever wished for: peace, recognition, security, you name it?”
I confessed to him what I knew about my friends in Israel: “Do you know what Israelis see when they read a peace proposal in the newspaper?” I asked “They skip the text about peace, recognition and security and search for one word: ‘refugees.’ The rest is trivial; if that word is embedded in ‘right of return’ or ‘a just solution’ or ‘Resolution 197’ or some other phrase that may threaten the demographic makeup of Israel, the proposal is automatically deemed a nonstarter.”
“What did the Saudi proposal say about the refugee problem?” he asked. “Like you, I don’t have the precise language” I answered “but, like most Israelis, I recall the words ‘just solution,’ which should settle your question right there.”
“Interesting!” my Arab colleague said. “I have always assumed that if we build trust and solve the land problem, some solution will eventually be found for the refugees’ problem.”
“Yes, many Israelis made this assumption during the Oslo period,” I said. “Now they want the solution spelled out in advance.”
I was reminded of this conversation last week, when I read President Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace
not Apartheid” and found the following passage on page 211:
“The Delphic wording of this statement [the Saudi proposal]was deliberate, in Arabic as well as in Hebrew and English, but the Arabs defend it by saying it is there to be explored by the Israelis and others and that, in any case, it is a more positive and clear commitment to international law than anything now coming from Israel.”
I recalled how the Delphic wording of the Oslo agreement was deliberate too, and how, in the aftermath of the
Oslo breakdown, leaders of the shattered Israeli peace camp confessed in public that they had been fooled and betrayed by their Palestinian comrades. Specifically, they felt that promises to prepare the Palestinian public for some compromises on the refugee problem were never acted on (Haim Shur, Maariv, June 2001])and that this inaction was the main reason for the out break of the second Intifada; Arafat could simply not face his people with “an end to the conflict” after decades of promising them a return to Haifa and Jaffa.
More than six years have passed since the breakdown of the Oslo process, and memory is short. People tend to forget the bitterness of yesterday. Last month saw renewed calls from both Israelis and Palestinians to revitalize the Saudi proposal (e.g.Collett Avital, Jerusalem Post, 23 January, 2007) and many were watching to see whether the Israeli peace camp would endorse the Saudi plan without further clarification of the nature of the ‘just solution’ to the refugee problem.
The answer came last week as part of an unprecedented candid exchange between two of the Middle East’s most respected journalists, Salameh Nematt, an Arab, and Akiva Eldar, an Israeli, published simultaneously in Arabic, Hebrew and English. In the third round of this exchange, peace activist Eldar wrote:
“…We, the Israelis, need to be convinced that there is a solution to the refugee problem. Nothing is more likely to deter Israelis than the expression “right of return.” In their eyes, these words are a synonym for the destruction of the Jewish state. Politicians on both sides know that it is inconceivable to strip a sovereign state, such as Israel, from its authority to decide whom to accept as its citizens. New cities have been built on the villages in which the refugees lived. Children and grandchildren of Jewish refugees from Europe were born in houses that remained standing. Anyone in their right mind knows that the solution to the Palestinian refugee problem is not to create a Jewish refugee problem. The solution can be found in a peace process that is based on two states and the absorption of most of the Palestinian refugees in their new state.” (2 February, 2007, commongroundnews.com)
Indeed, this position is shared by every Israeli that I know, including the strongest advocates for a Palestinian state, and it poses two problems in the way of the Saudi peace plan. First, would the Palestinians be willing to sign a peace agreement with the provision that most refugees will be absorbed into their new state?
Second, assuming they do, would Israel be willing to make irreversible concessions in land and security for a reversible promise by the Palestinians to settle the refugees, rather than keeping them as as a reservoir of militancy against Israel.
Here comes my modest suggestion, resting again on Saudi wisdom and goodwill. Instead of waiting for negotiations to commence and peace agreements to be signed — a long, tedious and precarious process by
any account — the Saudis together with other oil-rich countries should launch a “Palestinian Marshall plan” to build permanent housing for Palestinian refugees, in the West bank and Gaza.
Such a plan, if launched immediately, would create the conditions necessary for negotiations, agreement and a viable Palestinian state. Israel would welcome it as a signal of peaceful Arab intentions, and the Palestinians would welcome it as a genuine investment in their future.
And mother history would certainly welcome it as a meaningful, effective and much belated step toward peace and reconciliation: It should start today!
—————————————————
By Ramzi E. Khoury
As the end of the second term of the Bush administration nears, there isn’t much hope for an impressive accomplishment that President George Bush Junior and his team can take with them into the books of
history. The one and only historic accomplishment that can be achieved in two years, due to a the fact that a lot has been already achieved through Oslo and Madrid, is to create a Palestinian state on lands occupied in 1967 with Jerusalem its capital.
This has a chance for success because Bush needs it badly, and the Palestinians understand that whichever party wins the next elections in the USA, they will be very busy dealing with priorities: the
economy, Iraq, Afghanistan and the fact that Al Qaeda remains out there; strong and ready for action. If a state is not created before Bush is out, it may be a while before a solid process can be launched
and life under occupation is hell.
On the Israeli front, the ruling party Kadima, lost its purpose when its project for a unilateral withdrawal collapsed and has no choice but to jump forward into a viable solution or kiss its political
future goodbye. According to polls, seventy eight percent of Israel’s public don’t support their government.
Meanwhile, the international community has finally reached the understanding that the Palestine-Israel conflict remains the most prominent crisis fueling the divide between the Muslim World and the
West, inclusive of adverse inter-community relations in Europe and elsewhere.
This is why all parties are scrambling for a solution and it can be done within the next two years if the parties pick up from where Madrid ended, walking the path drawn by the Quartet’s Road Map and of course if there is a true will and enough courage to make the right decisions on both sides.
Whereas Jerusalem remains a major issue on the agenda of any final status agreement, especially when Israel is very busy changing reality on the ground including the latest projects of building a synagogue with housing apartments in the Muslim sector of the city (The Flowers Gate development plan) and excavations around the Holy Aqsa, the issue of refugees remains the most complex of problems on the peacemaking agenda.
Such a solution has to be fair. No party has the right to rob the six million Palestinian refugees (including those who live in Israel) of their inalienable rights as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly resolutions 194 and 2292 and Security Council Resolution 237.
Nor is it acceptable to declare that Israeli sentiments on the issue are to prevail with utter disregard for a Palestinian acceptance of any solution; when Israel is the cause of the refugee problem. As a
matter of fact unless the Palestinian refugees accept a final solution, peace will not prevail even if a final status agreement is reached between the politicians.
Furthermore, such “acceptance” cannot and should not be dictated on the Palestinians by any party nor would any party else than the unrealistic in Israel and the USA promote such an idea.
The Saudi Initiative which was adopted unanimously by Arab states was a confidence building measure from the side of the Arab States which have collectively been portrayed by Israel as a hostile sea waiting
to swallow up the tiny Jewish State and therefore the initiative robbed the radicals in Israel of that lie once and for all.
The initiative wasn’t a final status agreement between Palestine and Israel that the latter was expected to endorse by any means. It was a clear project for a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict once a final status agreement is in place and a message made to the Israeli public and the world that the Arab States will recognize Israel when there is an end to occupation.
The initiative therefore removed a major obstacle in the face of reaching a lasting peace and there are many in Israel who hold the Israeli consecutive governments responsible for their failure to at least recognize that the Arab League’s adoption of the initiative is a historic act on the part of the Arabs because it makes reaching peace a possibility.
To expect the Arab States to sell out the rights of the Palestinians and enforce an “unjust solution” on them is ridiculous and dreamy. The job of the Arab states, just like that of the international community is to make the environment conducive for peace and therefore allow the Palestinians and Israelis a real chance at it.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians understand the complexity of the situation and take Israel’s fears into account and therefore are willing to engage to find a solution that is acceptable to both sides.
Unfortunately, the Israelis who do see the “right of return” and the concept of “a just solution” as the demise of Israel through the “weapon of demographic change,” have not been willing to engage in anything less than a declaration on the part of the Palestinian leadership that the refugees have no right of return; an impossible task to do.
To add fuel to the fire, many politicians in Israel also push “the need” to reduce the number of non-Jews in Israel (a million Muslim and Christian Arabs are Israeli citizens) as part of a final status solution! And we are not talking about the maniacs who are pushing the poison of another forced “transfer” including sending
Palestinians from lands occupied in 1967 out to the abyss of refugeedom!
There can be no permanent peace as a result of injustice, but only as a result of a just solution even if the latter comprises sacrifices from both sides.
Just like the Israelis need to know that there is a “refugee solution,” the Palestinians also do. By all means, it is the responsibility of Israel to find that “just solution” as much as it is of the Palestinians with the support of their Arab allies and the international community. But the core decision makers on this have to be Israel and Palestine and the rest are there to support. Therefore, to suggest that the Palestinians and Arabs should offer Israel an acceptable solution is to suggest that Israel doesn’t need or care to have peace; a nonstarter.
Finally, I have my suggestion to make. Saudi Arabia, the Arab States and international community have always been ready to help the Palestinians build the infrastructure of their future state and therefore this is not the essence of the problem nor is that aid the essence of any solution as badly needed as it is. Israel and Palestine should not miss this opportunity for lasting peace and it is only in their hands to achieve.
What is the essence of a solution however is for Israel to declare its historic responsibility in creating the refugee problem, and it can start by accepting the United Nations’ resolutions on this issue and which represent the consensus of the world. After all, Israel was created as a result of UN resolutions and the Palestinians have accepted international legitimacy; the basis of their recognition of Israel despite the fact that it sits on the vast majority of their historic land.
Once this is done, Israel must immediately plunge into negotiations with the Palestinian leadership to reach a solution that both sides can live with and which will ensure true peace because it would be,
after all, “a just solution,” and no other kind of solution can be sold to the public.Alliance of Civilisations Initiative) and unless it is resolved there may not be a solution to other crisis including that of Iraq
(Hamilton-Baker Commission’s Report.)
