In the official Arab discourse, the Palestine cause is still the “Arab's first cause” and the “crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict”. Translated into practical terms, this means, firstly, that the Palestinian cause is not just the responsibility of the Palestinian people, Palestinian Authority and/or Palestinian resistance movements, but also the collective responsibility of all Arab peoples and governments. Secondly, it means that that the conflict between the Arab states and Israel will continue as long as the Palestinian cause remains unresolved, and that normalisation of relations with Arab governments and peoples begins with the solution to the Palestinian cause. This discourse was largely consistent with practice at both the official and grassroots levels in the Arab world throughout the period of armed confrontation with Israel, which lasted until the October 1973 war. Officially, Arab governments from the outset treated the Palestinian cause as a pan-Arab national cause. The Arab League assumed the task of supporting the Palestinian people in their struggle for their rights to independence and self-determination. It treated Israel, after its establishment, as a source of something that the Arabs needed to confront collectively and it instructed Arab states to boycott Israel politically and economically and not to enter into any form of separate bilateral relationship with it. At the grassroots level, Arab political movements of all ideological shades opposed the Zionist project out of hand. The Islamists, who regarded this project from a religious perspective, held that it posed a threat to Islam. They called for jihad against it from the standpoint that Palestine is a part of the Islamic world, rendering jihad a duty incumbent on every individual Muslim. To the pan-Arabists, the Zionist project was a scheme devised to undermine the Arab nationalist movement and the dream of Arab unity by physically separating the Arab east from Arab North Africa. The liberals, for their part, opposed the Zionist project on both patriotic and humanitarian grounds. It was a politically and morally unjustifiable colonialist project associated with the colonialist powers, and the Palestinian people, therefore, had the right to resist it with the support of peoples throughout the free world. In such a context, the Palestinian cause would naturally receive unanimous support from all official and popular quarters. Today, however, talk of the “Arab's first cause” and the “crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict” seems to have lost credibility at both the official and grassroots levels. Egypt since 1979 and Jordan since 1994 are bound by peace treaties that oblige them to normalise relations with Israel, regardless of Israel's position on the Palestinian cause. Moreover, in 1993, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) itself signed the Oslo Accords, committing it to security cooperation with Israel with no linkage between this cooperation and a halt to Israeli settlement expansion, let alone full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories. In addition, some Arab governments today openly hold that Israel is no longer a major source of threat to the security of Arab states and peoples. They promote the idea of cooperating with it beneath the guise of the need to fight terrorism or, alternatively, the need to counter the Iranian expansionist project in the region. At the grassroots level, the Palestinian cause has fallen to the bottom of the list of Arab priorities now that the region is infested with the plagues of extremism, sectarian strife and civil wars with no end in sight. Shia Arabs are at war with Sunni Arabs. The Kurds in Arab countries are at war with Arab citizens, whether Sunni or Shia. Most Muslims in the region, whether Arab or non-Arab, are at war with non-Muslims. Even the Palestinians are so divided that one camp accuses the other of serving as an Israeli tool designed to bury the Palestinian cause. Obviously, Israel would seize this opportunity to take advantage of the ubiquitous chaos in the Arab world that has so heavily skewed the balances of power in its favour. These, it believes, are the ideal conditions to force the Arab world into a settlement that would put an end to the Palestinian cause. This may help explain some of the recent diplomatic moves to “revive the peace process” or to “transform the cold peace into a warm peace”. Many suspect that these moves essentially aim to set the stage for modifications to the Arab Peace Initiative that was adopted in the Arab summit in Beirut in 2002. But the question is: what kind of modifications? Ones related to the Palestinian cause and worded in such a way as to persuade Israel to agree? The Palestinian cause has two chief components. The first relates to territory and boundaries. The second relates to human beings and Palestinian refugees above all. A just solution can only be obtained through two approaches: - The creation of a single bi-national democratic state in which all citizens, Jews and Arabs, are fully equal. This is a radical solution. It resolves all outstanding issues and would not require negotiations over land and borders, or over human beings and their right to exist. The single state would be established on the area known as historic Palestine as defined by the borders that existed under the British Mandate. It would be open to all, Jews and Palestinian Muslims and Christians, meaning that both Palestinian refugees and Jews anywhere in the world would have the right to return and to be granted citizenship. Israel, as we know, opposes the single democratic state solution out of hand as it believes that over the long run it would be dominated by an Arab demographic majority. Therefore, we cannot expect this option to become the basis for any negotiating process anytime soon. - The two-state solution, which calls for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace with the existing Israeli state. This solution requires, firstly, the designation of the boundaries of the Palestinian state to be established alongside Israel, which still has no officially demarcated borders. Secondly, it requires a definition of the concept of a “just solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees” a condition stipulated in all relevant international resolutions and agreements. The Arab initiative, as worded in 2002, presumes that the borders of the proposed Palestinian state would be those defined by the 1949 armistice agreement. It also presumes that all Palestinian refugees wishing to return to the homes from which they were expelled, or which they were forced to flee, should have the right to do so or to receive appropriate compensation for their lost possessions and other harm. Some have argued that amending the Arab initiative to include a provision limiting the Palestinian right of return solely to the territories that would comprise the Palestinian state would be sufficient to win Israeli approval of the initiative. The argument, however, rests on very weak and unsustainable premises, which do not take into account the positions and aims that Israel has made so clear in all negotiating processes in the past and that have not changed one iota. On the other hand, Israel might try to encourage allies or cooperative governments abroad or in this region to take steps, suggesting that Israel would be prepared to accept the Arab initiative after it is modified. But those steps would stop short of compelling Israel to commit to anything or to furnish guarantees that it would allow the creation of an independent Palestinian state within pre-1967 boundaries with its capital in East Jerusalem. As Israel has learned from past experience, ploys of this sort will generate further Arab divisions and, hence, further chaos and Arab weakness. I am thoroughly convinced, therefore, that any move toward modifying the Arab initiative is not the correct course to take if we seek a just solution to the Palestinian cause. If the Arab states at this stage can do anything that would benefit the Palestinian cause it would be to begin, firstly, with an Arab initiative that seeks to unify Palestinian ranks. Until the Palestinians unite and all factions agree on a new and unified strategy for managing the conflict with Israel there can never be a real opportunity for a political settlement that will realise the minimum level of the Palestinians' legitimate demands. The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
