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An authentic Arab Peace Initiative is needed
President Trump’s proposal to resettle the Palestinian population of Gaza to neighboring countries is producing one healthy outcome: the Arab countries and the international community are been forced to look again at the problem of the refugees from the Arab-Israeli wars.
Gaza residents wishing to begin a new life somewhere else – especially in an Arab country, their most natural destination, given their shared language, culture and traditions – should be given the possibility to do so. This is a universal humanitarian right that has been successfully applied in the past to numerous refugee populations all over the world.
For over seventy-five years, this right has been denied by the Arab countries to the Palestinian refugees for one simple reason: They have been used as pawns in a long-term conflict aimed to eliminate the State of Israel. As former President Joe Biden clearly stated in May 2021: “Let us get something straight here. Until the region says unequivocally that they acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as an independent Jewish state, there will be no peace”. [1]
President Trump’s proposal regarding the Gaza population is quite extreme, perhaps to provoke a healthy debate. It has some realistic premises that cannot be ignored: a combination of population overcrowding in a small strip of land (about 24 miles long and 6 miles wide) ravaged by repeated wars, and immense physical destruction (the latter following Hamas’ attack on the Israeli border communities on October 7th, 2023, the massacre of more than one thousand Jews, and two hundred hostages dragged to Gaza.)
The Arab countries should come with a clear initiative of their own on how to solve the refugee problem, and show that they are truly interested in turning the page and make peace with the Jewish State.
The first step in a true Arab Peace Initiative should be to give descendants of Palestinians, who were born in the Arab countries, full citizenship rights in their countries of residence. The wealthy Arab countries should provide all the needed help for the full integration of these refugees in their present countries of residence, including the eradication of all the refugee camps. According to the UNRWA, about 2,700,000 Arabs of Palestinian descent live today in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan alone. Among them, more than 2,000,000 are in Jordan. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and other Arab countries.
This is long overdue. This is an elemental recognized right for all descendants of refugees in all the other conflicts in the world: the right to rebuild their lives in their new countries of residence. The Palestinians became the exception to the rule: They were kept for generations as refugees in the Arab countries to sustain and provide a justification for the continuation of the war against the State of Israel. In this sense, the UNWRA has been instrumental in keeping and feeding the idea within the Palestinian population that their stay in the Arab countries (and even in Gaza and the West Bank) is temporary, until their “right of return” to Israel proper will be exercised.
Israel did its part to solve the refugee problem by integrating 600,000 Jewish refugees from the Arab countries. Around half of the present Jewish population in Israel, that is, around 3.5 million Jews, is descendent from these Jewish refugees from the Arab countries. Israel, within its pre-June 1967 borders is also home to a large population of Palestinians: about 2 million Arabs live in Israel proper. They are represented in all areas of the Israeli society, including the Israeli Parliament and the Israeli Supreme Court.
It is time for the Arab states to do their part in integrating the Palestinian refugees in their countries of residence.
The second step in a true Arab Peace Initiative is for the Arab countries to support the 242 United Nations Security Council resolution from November 1967. This means support the reunification of the West Bank with Jordan. An “independent” Palestinian mini-state in the West Bank (55 miles long by 40 miles wide), would be overrun by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, and will become the source of irredentist movements fueling repeated armed conflicts not only with Israel to the west, but also with Jordan to the east.
Following the model of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, the West Bank will be demilitarized (as the Sinai Peninsula is). The final recognized international borders between the State of Israel and the reunified Jordan, replacing the 1949 armistice line, will be decided through negotiation, but will resemble the pre-June 1967 armistice line, with some territorial swaps here and there. No one will be forced to leave his/her home:
No one will be forced to leave his/her home
After a recognized international border between Israel and the reunified Jordan will be established, replacing the armistice (cease-fire) lines of 1949, some small Jewish towns, presently in the West Bank, might appear within the international border of the reunified Jordan. Similarly, some small Arab towns, presently in the West Bank, might appear within the international border of Israel. The same might happen with some small Arab towns presently within Israel’s 1949 armistice borders: they might appear within the international border of the reunified Jordan. No one will be forced to leave his/her home, and the individual civil rights of these people will be respected. This will include their rights to keep their ties with their fellow citizens on the other side of the international border. This will also include their right to hold dual-citizenship.
If these basic two steps are adopted by an Arab Peace Initiative, then – within this framework – the political future of the Gaza Strip can be resolved too. The political future of the Gaza Strip may be open to discussion: The author described a couple of long-term options in [1, chapters 7 and 9]. However, some principles could be established and implemented immediately. These would include: 1) The Gaza Strip will be demilitarized; and 2) An international initiative will be launched to rehabilitate the Gaza Strip and eliminate its refugee camps.
Wrong diagnoses lead to unworkable and failed solutions, like the Oslo Accords, which was tried multiple times and led to nowhere. The conflict is not a local conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, but a regional conflict between Arabs and Jews.
Unfortunately, all the Arab peace initiatives that have been floated through the last two decades look more like a “2-stage solution”, instead of a “2-state solution”: First stage, the establishment of an ephemeral Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza; and second stage, the elimination of the State of Israel by waging “the war of return” of millions of Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel within its pre-June 1967 borders, under the euphemistic mantra of implementing the UN General Assembly Resolution 194 from December 1948.
Reference
[1] For details, check my book “The root of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the path to peace” (November 2024 edition). It can be downloaded for free at:
