Israel-Palestine: For Human Values in the Absence of a Just Peace | Page 23

Israel-Palestine: For Human Values in the Absence of a Just Peace

election, from taking power except in Gaza. Other Middle East countries—Jordan, Lebanon and
Turkey—also have democracies with contested elections that effect on policy outcomes; like
Israel, their democracies also have limits.
“All the Arabs want to throw the Jews into the sea.”
The Arab Peace Initiative, first introduced at the Beirut summit in 2002 by Crown Prince
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, proposed ending the Arab-Israeli conflict (i.e., normalizing
relationships between Israel and all Arab states in the region) in exchange for a complete Israeli
withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the occupied territories and a “just settlement” of the
Palestinian refugee crisis based on UN Resolution 194. The initiative has been re-adopted by the
Arab League on several occasions. Although a number of Israeli officials responded positively to
the initiative, it was described as a “non-starter” and rejected by the Israeli government. The
P [\