Since 1948, perhaps the single most unifying issue in the Arab
world has been "the Palestine Question." The notoriously fractious
Arab world would unite as one in passing Arab League and UN
resolutions supporting the Palestinians and opposing Israel.
Privately, many Palestinians scoffed at this show of support even
as they publicly welcomed it. "Words and no action," they
complained.
Actually, the nature of Arab support for Palestinians has varied
widely over the last 60 years, and there has always been a wide gap
between rhetoric and reality. In the 1930s and '40s it was built up
by the tireless work of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el
Husseini, who brought the Palestinian cause to the attention of
Muslims as far as India. Partly thanks to him, the Arab states
opposed the Partition Plan at the U.N. in 1947, vociferously if not
cleverly. Partition passed, the Zionists prepared their government
in waiting, and the Arabs did little. War was promised by the Arab
states if the Jews dared to declare a state, though it is now clear
that Arab generals warned their presidents and kings that their
armies were woefully unprepared. The leaders were caught, however,
in their own rhetoric, which led to the Arab debacle of 1948. Only
the Arab (Jordanian) Legion fought well, and it is clear that they
were fighting for specific territory and Jerusalem, and not
seriously attempting to destroy the Jewish state. Palestinians
pointed out cynically that each Arab state that sent troops hoped
to profit from the war, and they were largely correct.
In the 1950s through the '60s, the Palestinian cause was largely
quiescent. Neither the Sinai Campaign of 1956 nor the Six Day War
of 1967 really involved Palestinians. Arab rhetoric volleyed and
thundered; Arab leaders vied with each other in the harshness of
their denunciations, even calling each other Zionist tools; but
little was done. To be fair, most Arab countries extended some
significant degree of openness and help to Palestinian refugees,
but only Jordan gave them citizenship. Israel criticized the Arab
states for not providing the haven Israel had provided to Jewish
refugees from the Holocaust, which would, from an Israeli point of
view, have provided the perfect settlement to the Palestinian
problem.
Israel further accused the Arab states of using the Palestinian
issue to distract Arab populations from their own shortcomings, and
there is probably some truth to that. As noted, it presented an
issue on which unity was easy, even if (or because) real action was
impossible.
After 1967 and the Israeli conquest of the West Bank and Gaza, the
Palestinians largely took their cause into their own hands. Jordan,
which had still fondly hoped to regain Palestine, was reluctant to
recognize the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the
Palestinian people" but had no choice. The Yom Kippur War of 1973
had nothing to do with the Palestinians, nor did the ensuing
Egyptian-Israeli peace process. Sadat tried to bargain with Begin
on the issue, but Sadat's heart was in the Sinai and Begin's was in
the West Bank, and each got what he craved. When Israel
successfully removed the PLO in 1982 from Lebanon to Tunis, the
Arab world did nothing.
The first intifada broke out in December 1987 partly because an
Arab League meeting in Amman, for the first time, largely ignored
the Palestinians. After the Gulf War the Palestinians had lost much
of their Arab support, and thus were desperate enough to engage in
the Oslo peace process in the early '90s.
The Arab states, which had provided little support for the
Palestinians in war, provided just as little in peace. In the
1990s, with the exception of Jordan and to some degree Egypt, the
Arab states stayed largely aloof from the peace process. Bill
Clinton tried unsuccessfully to enlist them at Camp David, but
failed, as did the peace process.
It was only in 2002 that Saudi Arabia, which by then had largely
lost interest in the conflict except as a cause that exacerbated
anti-Saudi Islamism, pushed an unprecedented peace initiative
through the Arab League. Even Iraq under Saddam Hussein accepted
it. It fell with a thud, not helped by the fact that it coincided
with the worst suicide bombing in Israel, at a Passover seder,
followed by Israel's "Defensive Shield" Operation in the West
Bank.
At the beginning of Israel's 2006 Lebanon war, Saudi Arabia, Egypt
and Jordan, in effect backed Israel against Hizbullah, thus
demonstrating clearly that they are far more worried about Islamism
than about Israel. The next year Saudi Arabia, taking an
increasingly prominent role, had the Arab League re-pass its peace
initiative. By now, radical leadership against Israel is led by
Iran and the Islamists; the Arab states really do want peace, even
if (and largely because) their populations are increasingly excited
by Islamist rhetoric, which is both anti-Israel and against the
existing regimes.
At this point, Israel could change the whole equation by accepting
the Arab Peace Initiative as a basis for discussion, which is all
that Fateh and the Arab states insist on. If they did, and
negotiations succeeded, then a new axis could likely be formed
between Israel, a renewed and empowered Palestinian Authority which
would have to accept Israel to become a state, and most of the Arab
states, against Iran and the Islamists. But this is the Middle
East. It makes too much sense. Don't hold your breath.