Reviewing the Fahd Plan of 1981, outlining the contours of an Arab-Israeli peace

On August 7, 1981, Saudi Crown Prince Fahd bin Abdulaziz announced a peace plan for the Middle East and affirmed the right of the Palestinian people to an independent state in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967.

His eight-point proposal notably called for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, including "Arab Jerusalem," the dismantling of settlements, guaranteeing freedom of worship for all religions at holy sites, the right of return and compensation for Palestinians, placing the West Bank and Gaza under UN management for a transitional period of a few months at most, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

The project was to unfold under the auspices of the United Nations so that "all countries in the region could live in peace."

The most revolutionary aspect of the plan was that it de facto implied the recognition of Israel, which was unthinkable for many Arabs.

The path of diplomacy

While Egypt had previously made peace with Israel in 1979 following the Camp David Accords, which concluded in September of the previous year, the rest of the Arab world disapproved and wanted to collectively pressure Israel for concessions. The 1973 war had indeed demonstrated once again the superiority of the Israeli army, leaving diplomacy as the only possible path forward.

At the time, it was inconceivable that the countries of the region would neglect the popular, and considerably pan-Arab, Palestinian cause. In fact, assuming the position of main defender of the cause guaranteed a leading regional stature.

With the defeat of Nasser's socialist pan-Arabism, Saudi Arabia, often accused of being too close to the United States, sought to reclaim the spotlight as the guardian of Islam's two holiest sites. It injected money into countries whose regimes aligned with its political line. Saudi Arabia indeed feared a generalized radicalization of the region, which could have played into the hands of the Iranian Islamic Republic which was seeking to export its revolutionary model.

The United States, then led by Republican Ronald Reagan, welcomed the Saudi Prince’s plan as a "sign of hope," without fully endorsing it. Israel rejected it, but considered it nevertheless a positive development.

In November 1981, Abou Iyad, Yasser Arafat's right-hand man within Fatah, the largest faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), declared that it was only "when the United States accepts the plan without any reservation that we will make a serious effort to consider it, sit down, and also accept it," reported the Washington Post at the time.

Arab countries reacted differently to the plan: Jordan displayed enthusiasm, Syria under Hafez al-Assad, close to the USSR, questioned the timing of the initiative, and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi openly opposed it. Tripoli notably refused to participate in the Sept. 9, 1982 summit in Fez, Morocco, where the plan was ultimately adopted with some modifications. The most significant of these was the replacement of the right of return with that of self-determination, and the addition of the exercise of "national rights under the leadership of the PLO, the sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinians, as the group had been recognized in 1974 by the Arab League.

Israel at the time refused to negotiate with the organization and rejected the plan. Its main objection was that it transferred to the United Nations the responsibility of creating guarantees for peace in the region — further distancing the possibility of Israel's recognition.

A solid foundation

As it stood, the plan remained the common position of Arab countries until the Madrid Conference, which paved the way for the Oslo Accords that were signed in 1993 and acknowledged mutual recognition of Israel and the PLO. In October 1994, it was Jordan's turn to normalize relations with its neighbor.

Nearly a decade after the Oslo Accords, witnessing its failure to implement peace amid the Intifada, Saudi Arabia nonetheless sought to reform a common Arab position to confront Israel. Under the impetus of Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, Riyadh proposed the peace initiative adopted at the Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002. Similar in spirit, it was this time clearly stated that Arab countries would sign "a peace treaty" and establish "normal relations" with Israel if it withdrew from the occupied territories, including the Syrian Golan Heights and Southern Lebanon. It also offered a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue and accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, all the while rejecting any form of displacement of Palestinians.

The countries of the region, at least those that haven’t normalized relations with Israel, still officially defend this position. Meanwhile, the last few decades have shown a trend of neglecting the Palestinian cause and favoring Israel's integration into the region within a national rather than multilateral framework. The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco were a prime example of this.

While the war in Gaza continues to rage, with nearly 26,000 deaths to date, the Arab countries are reportedly considering a joint post-war plan, which would require Israel to pave the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state in exchange for normalization with Saudi Arabia, which would, in turn, receive security guarantees from the United States.

The plan is not far off from the 1981 Fahd Plan.

This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.