The Case for a New Arab Peace Initiative

A Focus on Palestinian Rights Must Come Before Negotiations Over a State

By Marwan Muasher

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, American officials have insisted that the eventual creation of a Palestinian state that would exist side by side with Israel is the only way to end the conflict in the Middle East. “The only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution,” declared President Joe Biden during his March 2024 State of the Union address. In May, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that “a two-state solution is the only way to ensure a strong, secure, Jewish, democratic state of Israel, as well as a future of dignity, security, and prosperity for the Palestinian people.” And throughout her presidential campaign this year, including after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July, Vice President Kamala Harris has promoted a two-state solution, describing it as the “only path” forward.

But to many people—especially Palestinians—these calls feel divorced from reality. After suffering years of death and destruction and decades of repression, most Palestinians do not believe that a two-state solution is viable or forthcoming. In fact, polls have suggested that a majority of Palestinians now support armed resistance as the way to end the conflict. It is easy to see why, even without a year of war, they might be disillusioned. The United States has spent decades peddling a two-state solution while supplying Israel with arms, allowing it to expand settlements in the occupied territories, and permitting it to seize more Palestinian land and natural resources. Washington has backed Israel internationally almost no matter what the country does. It has, in other words, consistently ignored the rights of the Palestinian people.

The time has come for a fundamental shift in how the world approaches the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather than focusing on a two-state solution as the be-all and end-all of the dispute, international leaders should focus first on ensuring that Palestinians and Israelis have equal rights. Outside governments should, specifically, pressure both peoples to agree to common rules and principles—leaving the shape of the solution for later. And they should let Arab states lead the way in promoting a rights-based resolution to the conflict. Otherwise, any new push for peace is doomed to fail, as have all negotiations over the last 30 years.

SORDID HISTORY

There was a brief period, in the 1990s and the early years of the 2000s, when the Israelis and the Palestinians might have agreed to the vision of a two-state solution peddled by U.S. officials today. An enormous international effort, led by the United States, got leaders from both Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization—the coalition internationally recognized as the representative of the Palestinian people—to come together and determine how to divide up their shared land. At meetings across the world, from Camp David to Oslo to Jerusalem, they undertook the hard work of deciding which party would govern which territory and what opportunities their people would have. At one point, the Israelis and the Palestinians even came close to signing a permanent agreement.

But the two sides could not reach a deal. The exact reasons for this failure are contested, but the overarching ones are clear. The United States, under President George H. W. Bush and then President Bill Clinton, continually either encouraged or cajoled the parties toward an agreement without specifying what that endgame entailed. Most notably, neither president stated explicitly that the parties should reach an agreement to end the Israeli occupation. As a result, negotiations frequently turned into open-ended discussions rather than concrete ones about terminating the occupation, which frustrated Palestinians and their supporters.

Arab states tried to make up for Washington’s failure by offering Israel an enticing endgame of their own. In exchange for a sovereign Palestinian state, they would grant Israel a collective peace treaty, collective security guarantees, and a tacit agreement that Arab states would not evict the millions of Palestinian refugees living within their borders. They also promised an end to all territorial claims once Israel withdrew. But these proposals were not enough to sell an agreement.

In the decades since these talks collapsed, a two-state solution has become increasingly improbable. Over the last 20 years, the Israeli government has allowed hundreds of thousands of its citizens to settle in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (the section of the city that is part of the Palestinian territories). Around 750,000 settlers reside in both places, accounting for about 25 percent of their joint population. Israeli leaders have become increasingly vocal about their desire to preserve this occupation indefinitely. Present-day Israeli politicians oscillate between arguing that Gaza and the West Bank are “disputed,” rather than illegally occupied, territories and claiming that they were given to the Jews by God.

A two-state solution seems beyond reach.

The West, led by the United States, could have fought back as Israeli politicians abandoned the peace process that Washington had championed. But other than occasional, toothless critiques, American officials did nothing to stop Israel as settlers continued to encroach on Palestinian lands. Arab states also largely gave up on promoting a solution. For decades, most of them declared they would normalize ties with Israel only if the Israelis gave Palestinians a state of their own—the land-for-peace formula. But in 2020 and 2021, several Arab states established relations with Israel even though Israel had made no meaningful concessions to the Palestinians.

As the prospect of a two-state solution withered, many activists and academics began to promote an alternative: a one-state solution. In it, Israelis and Palestinians would share equal citizenship in a democratic country that extended from the Jordanian border to the Mediterranean Sea. But many Palestinians and Israelis alike have expressed concern about such proposals, worried that it would mark the end of their respective national aspirations. Palestinians fear that agreeing to a one-state solution would mean agreeing to continued rule by the current Israeli state and the subsequent erasure of their identity. Israelis worry that sharing a democratic state with Palestinians would necessarily mark the end of a Jewish one. There are, after all, more Palestinians than Jews in Israel and the occupied territories.

The result is a deadlock. A two-state solution seems beyond reach. But a one-state solution also looks implausible right now. And the two communities are only becoming more rigid and unyielding. Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, especially, has radicalized both Israelis and Palestinians, who today trust each other even less than before. In a July vote, for example, the Israeli parliament overwhelmingly voted for a resolution that rejected the establishment of a two-state solution.

LOCAL LEADERSHIP

At first glance, it may seem that the Arab world is not ready to lead a new peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians. There is no regional leader with the stature of former Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, who got Arab states to unanimously approve the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. The Arab Spring, in 2010 to 2011, and the different priorities of the region’s principal powers have led many governments to ignore the conflict altogether.

But although Arab states are weak, they may still be the ones best positioned to offer a new way forward. For over a year, the West has been unwilling or unable to push Israel to make peace. No one government or people has the moral high ground on rights in the Middle East, whether it is Israel, the Palestinians, Arab states, or Western ones. And Arab states have, in some ways, a better track record of coming up with solutions: their 2002 collective peace initiative answered all of Israel’s stated concerns. As divided as the Arab world is today, there is no reason to suggest it cannot come together again.

To begin, however, Arab states must jettison many old ideas. They must, in particular, abandon fealty to a two-state solution. Instead, the Arab world should launch a peace process that focuses first and foremost on securing the rights that Israelis and Palestinians both deserve.

A rights-first plan has multiple advantages over one that is focused on the shape of the solution. But perhaps the biggest is that, unlike two-state or one-state proposals, it is virtually impossible for anyone to justify rejecting it, as long as it is based on universal values. The leaders of Israel’s biggest partners may not be willing to push to make a Palestinian state, but they do agree that Israelis and Palestinians are both entitled to the rights enshrined in the UN Charter. Biden, for example, stated early in his administration that Israelis and Palestinians “deserve equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity and dignity.” Harris declared at the National Democratic Convention in August that she believes Palestinians deserve to realize “their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.” Such leaders would be hard-pressed to turn down a plan premised on promoting exactly that, provided it is shorn of thorny institutional issues.

To advance a rights-based approach, Arab states should draw up a document, which they should then present to the United Nations. It would begin by explicitly recognizing that over seven million Palestinians and seven million Israelis live in areas under Israeli control and that as long as the former have fewer freedoms than the latter, violence between the groups will only grow. It would then note that there is no military solution to their conflict and that the only way to establish a durable peace is to afford both peoples full political, cultural, and human rights.

The initiative would commit both the Israelis and the Palestinians to negotiations sponsored by the United Nations. Those negotiations would be governed by the rules and principles embodied in human rights law, humanitarian law, International Court of Justice opinions, the UN Charter, and UN Security Council resolutions. The two parties would also agree that any final resolution would abide by those same laws and institutions. The document would make it clear that the two peoples are entitled to live in peace with each other and to enjoy the whole spectrum of human rights, including freedom, equality, and self-determination.

This process cannot be open-ended: as part of signing on to the initiative, the parties must agree to conclude negotiations in five years, the first three of which will be dedicated to addressing human rights and equality. During this phase, the Israeli state and the Palestine Liberation Organization will agree to find and void all laws, policies, and practices that are discriminatory or in violation of international law. This process will mean, among other things, putting an end to the construction of settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, as well as preventing Israel from annexing more land.

The initiative will also establish an accountability mechanism, led by the United Nations and other international bodies. Such a mechanism might be a committee of countries—the so-called Middle East road map, a 2003 peace initiative, for example, featured a committee of Russia, the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations. That committee, however, had no enforcement powers. To ensure that negotiations proceed in good faith and that the agreed rules are respected by both parties, this one would have real authority. The mechanism will help ensure that the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators meet agreed-on timelines and act as arbiters in cases in which the parties have conflicting interpretations of international law. It will also offer technical and legal assistance.

Netanyahu is clearly incapable of embracing a rights-based approach.

If the parties fail to reach an agreement within the established time frame, they will refer the conflict to the UN Security Council. If the Security Council fails to secure a deal, the process of determining an agreement will fall to the International Court of Justice. In compliance with the rules of the UN Charter, the parties will agree to follow the court’s decision.

The final two years will be dedicated to determining the shape of the resolution, including whether there will be one state, two states, or something else. It will, ultimately, be up to the Israelis and the Palestinians to determine the answer. But from the outset, the groups must agree that the solution will not mean absorbing Palestinians into the present Israeli state structure or expelling them into Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab countries. Both parties must be able to exercise their right to self-determination, as well as preserve their own cultural and political identity. Similarly, the refugee problem must be solved according to international law. If Jews have the right of return (as they do now), then so must Palestinians. Jerusalem must be an open city, where both sides have equal access to all its parts. Arab states, in turn, will commit to forging collective peace and security agreements with Israel.

Elements of this proposal come from earlier ones, including the Arab Peace Initiative and the Middle East road map. Yet unlike these efforts, this new proposal will not be based on advancing a two-state solution. Instead, it will be centered on advancing the rights and dignity of both communities.

HANDLING THE TRUTH

Accepting and implementing this vision requires new leadership for the Israelis and the Palestinians. For both sides, establishing such leadership will prove tricky. But it is not impossible. Among the Palestinians, there is a person with the stature and community support needed to drive a transformation: Marwan Barghouti. One of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s most prominent officials, Barghouti is now serving multiple life sentences in Israeli prisons for his involvement in the second intifada from 2000 to 2002. As a result of his commitment to Palestinian independence, he is immensely popular among all Palestinian factions. But he backs a peaceful solution with Israel, making him one of the only leaders with both the standing and drive necessary to broker a deal. It is therefore essential that Israel let him out of prison.

The Israelis, however, have a harder path forward. Netanyahu is clearly incapable of embracing a rights-based approach—or any productive approach. The heads of the country’s other major parties are no better. There is simply no large Jewish constituency in Israel that supports equal rights for Palestinians.

So how can Israel be made to accept a rights-based approach? The answer, in short, is international pressure. So far, the United States and its European partners have been happy to stick to the two-state mantra even though they acknowledge that the chances for its realization are slim. They have done so because it is a slogan that requires no tangible action and because Israel made a nominal commitment to it in the past. But these countries cannot continue to tacitly accept the status quo while claiming they support a Palestinian state. As Israel continues to settle the West Bank and violently repress Palestinians, the country’s supporters will have to grant that they are dealing with apartheid rather than a temporary occupation. That is far more difficult to defend. To avoid the moral shame of supporting such a system, the West will eventually have to take a harder line with the Israeli government.

The Zionist project can no longer define the future of Israel.

If the Israelis are forced to accede to a rights-based approach, many Palestinians might still be uncomfortable negotiating with them, worrying that a framework that does not foreground a two-state solution will eventually lead to a single state that dissolves the Palestinian national identity into that of Israel. But they shouldn’t fear. When apartheid collapsed in South Africa in 1994, the country’s Black population did not lose their identities to white South Africans. Neither did white South Africans lose their identity to their Black peers. Instead, the very structure of the state was rebuilt to ensure equal rights within a framework that preserved the cultural identity of both peoples. The same would be true here. There are many ways Israelis and Palestinians can split or share the same territory without one dominating the other, including a binational federation that would preserve each side’s right to self-determination and cultural identity.

What is clear is that attempting to stick to old paradigms will not work. There is, for all intents and purposes, already one state across the land between Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea—a fact that the world must contend with. The Zionist project of establishing a peaceful, democratic, and Jewish state in historic Palestinian lands is collapsing, if it isn’t already dead. In other words, the Zionist project can no longer define the future of Israel. A different project, based on equal rights, has to take its place.

Focusing on the rights of Israelis and Palestinians, not their governments’ dueling claims to sovereignty, will push the communities toward a solution in which both can live in peace and dignity. It is the only viable alternative for both communities. It fits within the framework of two states, one state, or even a federation. And it is the best way to end the carnage and promote security and stability in a tragically tumultuous region.