Our Last Best Chance_ The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril - King Abdullah II [148]
While Netanyahu was finalizing his coalition, the twenty-two members of the Arab League prepared to meet for their annual summit in Doha. Mindful of the previous attempts of some Arab countries to withdraw the Arab Peace Initiative, I knew the peaceseeking members would have to act aggressively if there were to be any chance of keeping the process alive.
A few days before every Arab League summit, the foreign ministers come together to prepare for the full meeting of the heads of state. I instructed my foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, to ensure that everybody at the foreign ministers’ meeting understood that the new president of the United States had to be supported in his early engagement in the peace process. We should not allow ourselves to be overcome by emotion, horrendous though Israel’s war on Gaza was. Nobody would benefit from continued occupation and misery. You have to make sure, I told him, that the Arab summit comes up with a pragmatic statement that pushes for a collective effort at reviving the peace talks.
In Doha, the mood was very negative. Some Arab foreign ministers argued that there was no point in pursuing peace in view of the Israeli government’s intransigence and its continuing refusal to abide by international law. Some argued that the Arab Peace Initiative should be pulled off the table. Netanyahu had just been elected, they said, and that meant Israel would soon be even more right-wing and intransigent. Forget trying to make peace with such a government. Our foreign minister and a few others argued that even though the general mood was pessimistic, we should still try to use any window of opportunity.
At the summit my objective was to convince my fellow Arab leaders to think strategically and maintain a unified stance, to show the world once and for all who was the roadblock to peace. We all blasted Israel for its war on Gaza, but I urged my fellow heads of state to look for a ray of hope amid the general darkness. We must give Obama a chance, I argued. He had been in office for just six weeks and was already doing some good things. He had appointed George Mitchell, a former senator with a track record of success in Northern Ireland and deep familiarity with the Middle East, as his special envoy on the peace process and had deployed him to the region immediately. He was saying that Israeli settlements were illegal and should stop. His secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, knew the region and the issues extremely well from her time as a senator and as first lady. Everyone remembered how close President Clinton had come; we should not do what many expected from the Arabs, reject new initiatives out of hand. “Let’s show some prudence and restraint, reaffirm our commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative, and see where this current initiative is going,” I said.
In the end, this argument carried the day, and our commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative was reaffirmed. But the strong emotional reaction across the region to Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war suggested that the initiative would not survive another major assault.
I told my fellow heads of state that President Obama had called me a few days before and invited me to visit Washington. How could we use this visit to advance the cause of peace?
Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the wise and experienced foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, came over during the summit and suggested to me that we carry a message from the summit to President Obama. We invited the foreign ministers from Lebanon, Qatar, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt, as well as the secretary-general of the Arab League, to come to Jordan to work out a joint Arab position. Some of these foreign ministers had also been in contact with