Summary
The initiative adopted as Summit resolution 14/221 by the Summit-level Council of the Arab League at Beirut on 28 March 2002, presented by Prince Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia: Israel is called on to withdraw fully from the Arab territories occupied since 1967, arrive at a just and agreed refugee solution under General Assembly resolution 194 (III), and accept a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital, whereupon the Arab States undertake to consider the conflict at an end, enter a peace agreement and establish normal relations with Israel (Arab Peace Initiative and Beirut Declaration (Beirut summit, 27-28 March 2002), PDF p.6).
Details
- The preamble reaffirms the June 1996 Cairo extraordinary summit decision that a just and comprehensive peace is a strategic choice for the Arab States, in accordance with international legality, requiring an equivalent commitment from Israel, and records the conviction that a military solution will not achieve peace or provide security for any party (Arab Peace Initiative and Beirut Declaration (Beirut summit, 27-28 March 2002), PDF p.6).
- The withdrawal called for includes the Syrian Golan to the line of 4 June 1967 and the territories in southern Lebanon still occupied; the Palestinian State is in the territories occupied since 4 June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Arab Peace Initiative and Beirut Declaration (Beirut summit, 27-28 March 2002), PDF p.6).
- The Arab undertaking is to “Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict at an end and enter into a peace agreement between them and Israel while achieving security for all the States of the region” and to establish normal relations in the context of this comprehensive peace (PDF p.6).
- The Initiative “Guarantees the rejection of all forms of Palestinian resettlement, which is incompatible with the special situation in the Arab host countries” (PDF p.6).
- It urges Israel and all Israelis to accept it, invites international support, and asks the summit Chairman to form a special committee, including interested member States and the League Secretary-General, to pursue support in particular from the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States, the Russian Federation, the Islamic countries and the European Union (PDF p.6).
- In the same summit record, resolution 14/224 B and the Final communiqué formulate the refugee term differently — as recognition and guarantee of the right of return under resolution 194 (III) — where the Initiative’s own text says “a just and agreed solution” (PDF p.6, p.8, p.25).
- The Beirut Declaration restates the Initiative in full in its operative part, under the Council’s sponsorship of the Saudi initiative as the Arab Peace Initiative, with the same three calls and the same Arab undertakings (PDF p.35); the Declaration’s own preamble frames the Palestinian demands it supports as including the right to return, self-determination and an independent Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital (PDF p.34).
- Resolution 1397 (2002), adopted fifteen days before the Beirut summit, welcomes “the contribution of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah” without describing it (Resolution 1397 (2002) (12 March 2002), PDF p.1).
- The Quartet Roadmap names the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, endorsed by the Beirut Arab League Summit, among the foundations of its settlement, in the form of a call “for acceptance of Israel as a neighbor living in peace and security” in the context of a comprehensive settlement, and calls that initiative a vital element of international efforts to promote a comprehensive peace on all tracks — a narrower statement of the Initiative than the Beirut text’s withdrawal, refugee and capital terms (A Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Quartet, transmitted 7 May 2003), PDF p.2).
Related pages
Arab Peace Initiative and Beirut Declaration (Beirut summit, 27-28 March 2002), Arab League, Right of Return, Normalization, Khartoum Resolutions