The Arab Peace Initiative, also known as the Saudi Initiative, is a 10 sentence proposal for an end to the Arab–Israeli conflict that was endorsed by the Arab League in 2002 at the Beirut Summit and re-endorsed at the 2007 and at the 2017 Arab League summits. The initiative offers normalisation of relations by the Arab world with Israel, in return for a full withdrawal by Israel from the occupied territories, with the possibility of comparable and mutual agreed minor swaps of the land between Israel and Palestine, a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN Resolution 194, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. A Palestinian attack called the Passover massacre took place on 27 March 2002, the day before the Initiative was published, which initially overshadowed it.
Abdullah, along with other members of the Saudi royal family, was outspoken in his support for the plan.
Despite his support for the plan, Israeli officials blamed Arafat for failing to stop the second Intifada's violence during the summit.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes "the general idea — to try and reach understandings with leading Arab countries — is a good idea," noting also that "the situation in the Middle East has changed since it was first proposed."
The Arab–Israeli conflict is the phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between various Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century. The roots of the Arab–Israeli conflict have been attributed to the support by Arab League member countries for the Palestinians, a fellow League member, in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict; this in turn has been attributed to the simultaneous rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism towards the end of the 19th century, though the two national movements had not clashed until the 1920s.
Egyptian forces crossing the Suez Canal on 7 October 1973
Begin, Carter and Sadat at Camp David
Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton, and Yasser Arafat at the Oslo Accords signing ceremony on 13 September 1993