As 2008 draws to a close, the Middle East and the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict are entering a major period of
transition. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has resigned, and
elections have been called for February 10, 2009. On the
Palestinian side, President Mahmoud Abbas' (Abu Mazen) term is
becoming a controversial issue following Hamas' claim that it ends
on January 9. It is unclear whether the Arab efforts led by Egypt
to hammer out an agreement between Hamas and Fateh before that date
will succeed, or whether matters will get more complicated,
deepening the rift between the two parties and the separation
between Gaza and the West Bank.
The Annapolis process, which began in November 2007, is also
nearing its target date of the end of December 2008, without having
produced the hoped-for agreement.
There is a general perception that, after 15 years of negotiations
since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, Israelis and
Palestinians are not capable of arriving at an agreement on their
own. An active international involvement is absolutely essential in
facilitating, monitoring and helping to advance the process.
A positive factor on the scene is the revived interest in the Arab
Peace Initiative (which was featured in the Palestine-Israel
Journal special issue, Vol. 14, No. 4, 2007). In an unprecedented
act, a full-page, full-color advertisement promoting the Arab Peace
Initiative was published in the major Israeli dailies and in
Palestinian Arabic dailies, with the Israeli, Palestinian and 50
Arab and Muslim states' flags, presenting the text and a call for
Israel to accept this historic opportunity for peace. Abbas
explained that "the Arab Peace Initiative is more than a two-state
solution; the entire Arab and Muslim world is offering Israel peace
and normal relations, in exchange for a two-state solution, based
upon the 1967 borders, a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank,
Gaza and East Jerusalem, living in peace alongside the state of
Israel, and a mutually agreed-upon solution to the refugee
problem." Two Israeli initiatives to promote the Arab Peace
Initiative have also appeared. The Council for Peace and Security,
a group of hundreds of Israeli former senior security officials,
published a full-page ad in Haaretz, declaring: "The Arab Peace
Initiative is an upheaval in the attitude of the Arab states!" They
wrote that "Israel doesn't have to agree to every detail in the
formulation of the initiative, but we must not ignore this historic
opportunity that the entire moderate Arab world is presenting
before us." In addition, The Israeli Council for Peace Initiatives,
a group of 120 prominent Israeli academics, security personnel,
businessmen, economists, artists and intellectuals, is also
beginning a public campaign to promote the Arab Peace
Initiative.
Another major new positive factor is the election of Barack Obama
as the new American president. The president-elect has declared
that he will make the promotion of Israeli-Palestinian peace a high
priority on his international agenda. Unlike President George W.
Bush, he will personally engage in facilitating the process from
the very beginning of his administration.
It is to be hoped that his administration and his foreign policy
team will not squander that opportunity, which reflects a genuine
American interest and is clearly in the interest of both the
Israeli and the Palestinian peoples.
Obama's well-known and forward-looking campaign slogan was "Yes We
Can." We hope that he will apply that philosophy to
Israeli-Palestinian relations and, together with the Quartet
partners - the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - will
demonstrate that this is also possible for our region.
This issue of the Palestine-IsraelJournal deals with
human security, and how the concept can be applied to Israel and
Palestine. The most basic definition of the concept is freedom from
fear and freedom from want. A secure and viable peace is the most
fundamental way of ensuring human security for both peoples. It is
also understood that if the sovereign authority of a people is
unable to provide human security, outside factors, the
international community and international civil society have to
help to provide what the local leaders are incapable of doing or
don't want to do on their own.