In March 2002, one of the bloodiest months of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud presented the Arab Peace Initiative. The Arab League summit that convened in Beirut that month adopted it as an official resolution. Representatives at the March 2007 Arab League summit in Riyadh reaffirmed the initiative.

The core of the proposal is a commitment by the 22 Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel if it agrees to withdraw from the territories occupied in the 1967 war, to a just solution of the Palestinian refugee issue and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

The initiative states that the Council of Arab States “calls upon the government of Israel and all Israelis to accept this initiative in order to safeguard the prospects for peace and stop the further shedding of blood, enabling the Arab countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighborliness and provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity.”

Just two years ago, the authors of the initiative modified it, acknowledging their agreement on land swaps. The amendment was made to the paragraph about final borders between Israel and Palestine, indicating that that they would not strictly follow the 1967 borders as stated in the original document.