The simple interpretation of Livni’s objections: Israel is gearing up, backed by the U.S., towards dividing the occupied Palestinian West Bank between the Jewish settlers whose colonies would be annexed to Israel and the Palestinians who will be left with 42 percent of the West Bank area to test-create a borderless transitional state as a long-term arrangement. Palestinian and Arab consensus condemn this arrangement as a non-starter, which will inevitably pre-empt any viable Palestinian state as envisioned by Bush’s two-state “vision.”
Obviously Israel is seeking an Israeli version of the API, but “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,” wrote Rami Khouri, the editor of Lebanon’s The Daily Star, summing up a widely held official Arab rejection.
Even U.S.-allied Jordan and Egypt who signed peace treaties with Israel on a bilateral basis are urging a comprehensive approach now and recalling international legitimacy as the proper framework: During his meetings in the U.S., King Abdullah II “underlined the need to solve the Palestinian issue in accordance with the Arab peace initiative and international legitimacy resolutions.” (4)
Changing the API would break up Arab consensus on it, which is its most effective asset that makes the collective peace offer credible and an historic turnabout opportunity.
Arab League Secretary-General, Amr Moussa, warned on record: “Arab peace initiative expressed an Arab consensus and will not be redrafted as demanded by some foreign powers. Watering down” the plan would be “a strategic mistake” that could lead to new bloodshed. “The Arab initiative is not open for review.” Similarly GCC secretary-general, Abd Al-Rahman Al-'Atiya, said the Gulf countries were opposed to changes to the API. Syria warned she “absolutely rejected for some hostile fingers to toy, directly or through brokers, with the agenda of the (upcoming) summit so that its decisions would come in harmony with the Israeli and American interests.”
However Israel’s ambitious hope of amending the API to offset her objections thereto could be building on unconfirmed reports about some Arab and Palestinian receptive attitudes. It was noteworthy that King Abdullah II of Jordan mentioned the Palestinian –Israeli unofficial “Geneva Initiative,” which was co-authored by the former Israeli minister of Justice and chairman of the Meretz party, Yossi Beilin, and member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser abed Rabbo who is a close confident of President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Geneva Initiative or Accord, which now enjoys the support of more than 32 nations including several Arab countries, meets the three Israeli proposed amendments to the API: It envisions five options for the Palestinian refugees based mainly on major return to the envisioned Palestinian state and a symbolic return on humanitarian basis to Israel, acceding for the first time ever by a Palestinian official or non-official of three Jewish major colonial settlements in eastern Jerusalem to Israel, a move that was condemned at the time by the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s new minister of Information, Mustafa al-Barghouthi, as leaving only 15 percent of the occupied Holy City to Palestinians, and agreement to an exchange of territory on a 1:1 ratio basis which would allow for Israel’s U.S.-backed refusal to pull back her IOF to pre-1967 lines. The accord however has won over neither minor nor major Palestinian political powers and failed to get the support of any major Israeli party; on the contrary it is condemned by a semi-Palestinian consensus and vehemently attached by Israeli right wing parties, especially the Likud.
On March 14 the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia met in Amman, Jordan to discuss prospects of Arab- Israeli peacemaking in view of American failure to convince Israel to begin final status talks as Egypt has been proposing. The premise of the meeting, as proposed by the Jordanian side, is that the fundamentals, not necessarily the text of the initiative, is what Arabs need to emphasise. The Jordanians accept that it is too difficult for Arab leaders, especially at these times of high anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment, to draft a new initiative with a lower ceiling than that suggested in 2002. Indeed, there is a clear awareness on all sides that any attempt to amend the initiative, especially with regards the issue of refugees, would risk splitting Arab countries into two camps. “What Jordan sees as possible, however, is to include in resolutions to be issued by the Arab summit later this month a language that "indicates Arab willingness to talk and reach a deal," especially on the issue of refugees since, as one Arab diplomat said, all Arab capitals know very well that there is no way that millions of Palestinians will be allowed to return to their original towns that have now become Israeli cities, even if they would want to anyway.” (5)
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