How the Arab world will enable Palestine to win its war of liberation
Jordanian King Abdullah II meets UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres within the 33rd Arab League Summit in Manama, Bahrain on 16 May 2024
Jeffrey Sachs and Sybil Fares write in Al Jazeera on 24 May 2024:
Israel’s war on Gaza has become Palestine’s Liberation War. The brutality of the war and blatant disregard for international law have shaken global politics to the core. But with Arab unity, Palestine will win its liberation, paving the way to peace and security in the Middle East through a two-state solution.
Even though the United States government acknowledges the need for a two-state solution, it blocks it in practice, being the sole veto last month against Palestine’s membership in the United Nations. Israel counts on the US to continue to prevent the emergence of a truly sovereign State of Palestine. Yet even this obstacle can be overcome.
The Arab nations, with impressive unity, are circumventing US resistance. After a meeting of the Arab League in Bahrain in mid-May, the Arab world is working towards a global conference to implement the two-state solution.
The Bahrain Declaration calls for “an international conference under the auspices of the United Nations to resolve the Palestinian issue based on the two-state solution, which ends the Israeli occupation of all occupied Arab territories, embodying an independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy, to live in peace and security alongside Israel, as a way to achieve a just and comprehensive peace”.
Arab unity on the two-state solution has been strengthening for more than two decades. The breakthrough came in 2002 with the Arab Peace Initiative although Israel rejected the Arab peace offer of the two-state solution and the US repeatedly backed Israel in its rejectionist policies. After the outbreak of the Gaza War in October, the Arab and Islamic leaders reiterated the peace proposal in a meeting in Riyadh in November.