Views » April 17, 2007 » Web Only

Israel and Hamas Just Say No To Peace

Over the past 40 years, the Arab League’s position on Israel has radically shifted. It’s time for Israel to recognize the change.

By Neve Gordon

In the wake of the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, eight Arab heads of state met in Khartoum, Sudan, to decide how to react to their humiliating defeat. The leaders’ message was straightforward: There would be no peace with Israel, no recognition of and no negotiations with the Jewish state. Following the summit, most Arab countries adopted the three no approach as their official policy, and for many years Israel was considered to be an illegitimate entity.

Much has changed in the Middle East since that fateful summit, and just last month, during the Arab League’s meeting in Riyadh, one got a sense of just how radical the change has been. Leaders from almost all of the League’s 21 member countries (as well as the Palestinian Authority) attended the meeting, and together they agreed to “reaffirm their call to the government of Israel and all Israelis to accept the Saudi peace initiative and seize the opportunity to resume the process of direct and serious negotiations on all tracks.”

The Saudi plan recognizes Israel and offers it permanent peace with all Arab countries in return for an Israeli withdrawal from lands captured in the 1967 war, the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.

Thus, the Arab states have replaced the three no approach with a three yes approach: yes to negotiations, yes to recognition and yes to peace. In the summit’s concluding remarks the Arab countries underscored that “they have chosen peace since it is the only strategic option” and proceeded to condemn all forms of terror and violence, and urged all countries to desist from a nuclear arms race. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal went so far as to say that even if Israel does not accept the initiative immediately the doors for peace and negotiations would be left open.

Ironically, the two key actors that are unenthusiastic about the Saudi initiative are Hamas and Israel.

Hamas, as is well known, is unwilling to recognize Israel and therefore remained uncommitted to the summit’s decisions, choosing instead to adopt an ambiguous position. A spokesman for the organization told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that “although we do not accept the Saudi initiative, we will not counteract the Arab consensus.”

Along similar lines, Israel’s official response to the summit was lukewarm, ignoring the content of the Riyadh resolution while focusing on the Arab call to begin a dialogue. “Israel believes in peace, and seeks to establish peaceful and neighborly relations both with the Palestinian people and with all the states of the region,” the official statement read, with an addendum that “Israel is sincerely interested in pursuing a dialogue with those Arab states that desire peace with Israel, this in order to promote a process of normalization and cooperation.”

Diplomatically speaking, Israel’s response is brilliant, since it gives the impression that the government supports the Saudi plan, while, in fact, it rejects the central principles underlying the initiative. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert underscored Israel’s rejectionist position only a few weeks ago when he said that any future negotiations would be informed by a three no approach: no to dividing Jerusalem, no to a withdrawal to the 1967 borders, and no to a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.

Israel’s position, in other words, is not only closer to Hamas’s than it is to the stance taken by Arab states and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, but is also counterproductive. The members of the Arab League understood that a rejectionist stance will only lead the region into more strife and bloodshed and therefore decided to make a historic compromise. Instead of adopting ambiguous language to conceal its three no approach, Israel should embrace this opportunity with open arms since peace is indeed the only strategic option. It is high time to seize the day.

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• Reader Comments

  Careful! The Saudi govt says a just settlement to the refugee problem but I believe for them that means that all descendents have the right to return to what is now Israel—and of course the demographics would destroy Israel. Second, the Saudi gov is hardly the Arab League—has the Arab League announced terms?
  Third: so long as Hamas runs the Palestinians, and continue to announce there will be no peace with Israel, there is not going to be a settlement.
  The leftistsw (sorry about that, paper) have always dreamt that the Arab s could be brought around to peace but those on the right have seen historically that that has not been the case.
  Let there be an annoucement by Hamas that there will be no acts of terror and that they will seek a peaceful solution and recognize the right for Israel to exist. Let Hezbullah in Lebanon also state this. And then let us judge Israel’s response.

  Posted by postroad on Apr 17, 2007 at 12:12 PM

  ” Israel should embrace this opportunity with open arms since peace is indeed the only strategic option. It is high time to seize the day. ”

  
  I agree. Seize the day, fire the tanks up and head east . Drive every living thing from the West Bank into Jordan. Shut down Gaza, hang the leaders of hamas, and deport the “refugees” to Egypt.  Flatten southern Lebanon, hang Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah from any available tree, pave it over, and use it for overflow parking. Drive from the Golan Heights into Damascus following a rolling artillery barrage. Test a nuclear device on Riyadh. No surrender. No land for whining losers.  No peace for terrorists. No peace for haji.

  Posted by texasindependent on Apr 17, 2007 at 2:03 PM

  When you have been invaded and with the desire to eliminate your country any number of times, if you then seize land in repelling attackers—they were not Palestinains by the way—then you do not simply give back the land and call it quits till the next attack. Israel has shown no signs of wanting to destroy its neighbors. But you begin to negotiate with a group that suggests that it no longer seeks your destruction. This has not happened as yet. The comment is very cute (aboive) but totally meaningless except for someone asture person miles from the suicide bombers.

  Posted by postroad on Apr 17, 2007 at 2:51 PM

  Ignore the rantings of the two Israeli State apologists and anti-Arab racists above. Israel literally created both Hamas and Hezbollah. The
  first as an alternative to the secular PLO in the late 70s and the second through their barbaric invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982. Israel has never wanted peace, see The Iron Wall by Avi Schlaim, an
  israeli historian, for the definitive view of the relations between Israel and the Arab States. Then see Alfred M. Lilienthal’s The Zionist Connection for the overall view including the Palestinians. The book
  by the left Zionist Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle: The US, Israel
  and The Palestinians, rev ed, 2000, is excellent on the actual history.
  There were no suicide bombers until the last few years, the Israeli Occupation has been going for FORTY years in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and still in Gaza. We negotiated with North Vietnam which never recognized South Vietnam, the French negotiated with the FLN which never recognized their rights in Algeria,
  israel has never recognized the rights of the Palestinians to their own state which includes Israel where 80% of them are from and which the UN conditions for recognizing Israel in 1948 mandated the right of return. Why should Israel have any RIGHT to “exist” when its very existence is as a direct result of the destruction of the Palestinians
  right to exist. And why demand the Palestinians endorse that principle in advance of final negotiations. Israel is the leading terrorist state in the world outside of the USA. They have killed hundreds of thousands of Arabs and displaced over two million Arabs since 1947-48. Israel came into existence by the destruction of over 400 arab villages and towns, see What Price Israel ? by Alfred Lilienthal, see The Question of
  Palestine by Edward Said. Just for starters. By the way, TexASS’s call for total ethnic cleansing and genocide will NOT be condemned by the lowlife JOOOOOOOO scum here like Chicago Cabbie or Natalie or
  Wicky Woo. Next time these swine start their “holocaust” call them on this.

  Posted by blondemike on Apr 17, 2007 at 4:31 PM

  2 millions? wow! 750 thousand refugees is the more nearly accurate figure of those that had lived in the land that is now Israel and fled. In fact, one million arabs by choice now live in Israel. and the Arabs? 800 thousand Jews kicked out of homes in arab lands.

  Citing Said (lets have one big state) or others hardly is convincing as authorities. The state of Israel was a result of the Briish Madate (prior to that the Ottoman empire) and sanctioned by the UN. Legal.
  I am not going to be impressed by writings of people because they might be Jewish. As for “authoritiesw,” the distinguised M. Oren, very sympathetic to the Palestinians had, in time, changed his view and recognized the desire to extincquish Israel.

  As for Hamas etc and its origins: what was in the past does not justify what is in the present. America was founded on the acceptance of slavery but does that mean we should accept it today?

  don’t bother answering if you must resort to name calling.

  Posted by postroad on Apr 17, 2007 at 5:46 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 67 posts.

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