The Arab Peace Initiative, first endorsed at the Beirut summit in 2002, was born of a specific context. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, what was to become the "moderate" Arab camp was intent on asserting its credentials to the West. Offering Israel full normalization of relations in return for an end of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights and an (unspecified) "just" solution to the refugee problem was an unprecedented move.
So historic an offer was it that, despite the abysmal lack of concrete action that followed, the API has remained on the table. It was re-endorsed by the Arab League in 2007, is ostensibly part of the Obama administration's Middle East diplomacy and has also been repeatedly supported by the European Union and the Quartet.
The world in 2011 looks very different from that of 2002. The Arab world is undergoing profound change. Decades-long dictatorships of the likes of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt have been swept away by a tide of popular mobilization and tacit military support. Neighboring Libya is in the midst of war, and while a return to the status quo ante under Muammar Gaddafi is difficult to contemplate, the alterative remains extremely murky.
Further east, Bashar Assad's regime in Syria trembles, and while it recognizes the need to move fast on political reforms, we have yet to see whether it too is already behind the curve. Likewise, the regimes in Bahrain and Yemen sit uneasily on the fence, as protests and violence rage on.
What then of the API in this profoundly transformed regional environment? In the short-run, the API is likely to remain where it has been for years: shelved. The dust of the current revolts will take time to settle, and when it does, the challenges are daunting.
A singular characteristic of the Arab spring is its fundamentally domestic nature. Responses to youth unemployment, soaring food prices, rampant corruption, political repression and widespread human rights violations are the bread and butter of the protesters' demands. No burning foreign flags or Islamist slogans on the streets of Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere. This is not to say that the "Arab street" is oblivious to Palestine, still less that it is supportive of the foreign policies pursued hitherto by its regimes. It is simply to say that the nuts and bolts of the revolts are quintessentially domestic in nature. And it is with these domestic economic, social and political questions that future leaders will have to grapple.
Likewise, the international community will continue to be absorbed by these events and their aftermath. In Libya, even in the best of possible circumstances in which armed conflict soon comes to a close, the post-Gaddafi future remains a worrying black box. More broadly, the European Union will be deeply engaged in reorganizing its Mediterranean policies that have been rendered obsolete or, at the very least, in dire need of a serious rethink by events in the region. The United States, for its part, will be fully occupied by the Gulf and by the evolution of what Robert Springborg calls Egypt's "coupvolution". A clear signal of these international priorities is the relative international neglect of the recent disturbing re-escalation of violence in Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
But what about the long run? Much will depend, of course, on the balance sheet of the "Arab spring." Let us assume, for the sake of optimism, that tomorrow's Middle East will be more democratic (or less authoritarian) than that of previous decades. If the political stars were to align, the API's prospects might be rosy, or at least rosier.
Were Egypt to move in the direction of greater democratic accountability, we may well imagine that it could re-appropriate its lost mantle of Arab leadership in the Middle East. Cairo would probably revise its Palestinian policy, moving towards a genuine commitment to intra-Palestinian reconciliation and a less sanguine policy towards Hamas. Alongside this, it may feel sufficiently emboldened to dust the API off the shelf and actively work towards translating it into political reality. The Syrian regime may also change or be severely weakened by internal dissent. This might reduce Iranian leverage on the Arab world, lifting prospects for the API.
At some point in the, hopefully, not-too-distant future, the international community, led by the US, will also recast its energy on the Arab-Israel peace process, currently derailed by Israeli obstinacy and a discredited PLO leadership. Particularly if it wishes to stave off the current trend of unilateralism--through the Palestinian Authority's drive for recognized statehood and Israeli threats of retaliation--the US may recommit to a more muscular mediation and find erstwhile and more effective (albeit more independent) allies in the Arab Middle East in this endeavor.
A final question mark regards Israel. To date, Israel's reaction to the Arab spring has been marked by fear and retrenchment. Its mourning of Mubarak's departure jarred with the rest of the world's applause. Yet with time and introspection, Israel may come to realize that swimming against the tide of change in the region is not in its best interest. And there is no better anchor than the API to bring Israel into synch with its region and the world.
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