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  • Elusive Peace: 60 Years of Pain and Suffering

    Media Monitors Network, CA
    April 26 2008


    Elusive Peace: 60 Years of Pain and Suffering


    by Louay M. Safi
    (Saturday, April 26, 2008)


    "The solution to the conflict must not be based on Jewish, Christian,
    or Muslim prophecies that would only inflame hate and mistrust among
    the followers of the three religious traditions. It should, rather, be
    based on the prophetic principles cherished by the three religious
    traditions. It must be based on the shared committed to the sanctity
    of human life, and the universally accepted principles of equal
    dignity, freedom of religion, democracy, and the rule of law."

    -------------------------------------- ------------------------------

    George W. Bush, who proposed the boldest peace initiative of any
    American president to solve the Palestine issue, managed to deliver
    only the most meager results during his two-term presidency. The
    Roadmap for Peace, developed by the United States in cooperation with
    Russia, the European Union, and the UN (the Quartet), was presented to
    Israel and the Palestinian Authority on 30 Apr. 2003. Despite the
    proclaimed hopes, however, it has been a clear fiasco and anything but
    a roadmap to peace. Although the Bush administration, during its final
    year in power, organized the largest conference for Middle East peace
    ever assembled and again made the boldest promises, very few people
    are holding their breath. The Roadmap initiative is practically over,
    and all signs point to a dead-end.

    Israel continues to confiscate more land and build more illegal
    settlements, while the Palestinians continue to hold onto their towns,
    villages, farmland, and houses with all the strength they can
    muster. All participants in this widening confrontation keep digging
    themselves into a deeper hole and bringing the world to the brink of
    disaster. The disparity between the parties is great, outside help is
    increasingly favoring one party over the other, and no honest broker
    or visionary leader has yet appeared to take a principled stand and
    advance a fair solution.

    How did the search for peace bring us to this sad state of affairs?
    Can the ongoing dynamic be changed from its current state to one that
    promotes real hope and peace?

    The Making of the Roadmap

    In his 4 Apr. 2002 speech, Bush outlined his formal position: a
    two-state solution that would result in an independent Palestinian
    state living `side by side' with a Jewish state in historical
    Palestine. "The Roadmap,' he declared, `represents a starting point
    toward achieving the vision of two states, a secure State of Israel
    and a viable, peaceful, democratic Palestine. It is the framework for
    progress towards lasting peace and security in the Middle East..." A
    year later, the State Department produced a detailed plan with
    specific phases and benchmarks to guide the peace process and set 2005
    as the year for achieving a `final and comprehensive settlement.' The
    results are well known: illegal Israeli settlements continue to grow
    rapidly; the Palestinian Authority is divided in two; and Gaza is
    subject to repeated military assaults, starvation, and economic
    blockades by Israel.

    The State Department's plan was in many ways an academic exercise,
    written with little attention to the dynamics of the political
    conflict that gripped the region for the last sixty years. The plan
    placed all the cards in the hands of the Israeli authority, requiring
    the immediate and complete cessation of hostilities by Palestinians
    while permitting the Israeli military to continue its incursions into
    the Palestinian towns and villages to arrest Palestinian activists and
    assassinate Palestinian militants. Mahmoud Abbas, excited by the
    Roadmap and what he believed to be a new commitment by the Bush
    administration to broker a new peace, persuaded Hamas to commit to a
    truce. The truce lasted till August 21st, when, Israel, using an
    American made Apache, assassinated Ismail Abushanab. Abushanab was
    considered by many Palestinians to be moderate, who strongly supported
    the negotiated truce.

    The Bush administration saw no need to pressure the government of
    Ariel Sharon to stop its incursions into Palestinian territories, and
    to at least freeze settlements as an important measure and first step
    to building trust. President Bush insisted that the United States
    cannot pressure the two parties to peace, and that future peace must
    evolve through negotiations and the mutual agreements between the
    warring parties. This practically gave Israel the upper hand in
    deciding the future of the Roadmap, as it enjoyed overwhelming fire
    power.

    The outcome of the Roadmap sponsored by the Bush administration is no
    different than that outcome of the Oslo accords sponsored by the
    Clinton administration: more expansion and more resistance. The
    Israelis are determined to pursue the goal of Greater Israel, and the
    Palestinians are increasingly willing to take strong punishments and
    heavy casualties to hold unto their land.

    Moses' Mission and its Reenactment in Modern Times

    The Jewish claim to Palestine is based on the divine promise to
    Abraham, a prophet claimed by the followers of Judaism, Christianity,
    and Islam: "On that day, God made a covenant with Abraham, saying: "To
    your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as
    far as the great river the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites,
    Kenizzites, Kadmonite, the Chitties, Perizzites, Refraim, the
    Emorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Yevusites." (Genesis 15:18-21)

    The Promised Land was further specified during the time of Moses: "Now
    Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of
    Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the
    land, Gilead as far as Dan, and all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim
    and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, and
    the Negev and the plain in the valley of Jericho, the city of palm
    trees, as far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to him, "This is the land
    which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to
    your descendants'; I have let you see with your eyes, but you shall
    not go over there." (Deuteronomy 34:1-4)

    This second promise given in Deuteronomy evidently delineates a
    smaller expanse of land promised to Moses than the one promised to
    Abraham. The promise was fulfilled during the reign of Joshua, and
    reached its farthest expansion under Solomon when the Israelite
    controlled much of Greater Syria and parts of Iraq and southern
    Turkey.

    Muslims do not disagree with the Biblical claims, as the Qur'an
    reaffirms God's promise to Moses that his followers will be delivered
    from their Egyptian servitude to the Holy Land. They do not, however,
    accept the claim that a Biblical promise can be legitimately reenacted
    after thousands of years and used as a ground for gathering world
    Jewry in Palestine and dispossessing its current inhabitants of their
    ancestral land. Thus they consider such a deed to be a blatant
    violation of universally accepted moral principles and recognized
    international law.

    The early pioneers of Zionist ideology, consumed with obtaining the
    existing powers' endorsement of their demand for a Jewish homeland,
    hardly worried about Arab reaction. On 29 Aug. 1897, they met in
    Basel, Switzerland, to refine their plan to take over
    Palestine. Imperial Europe, then expanding its colonial control into
    Asia and Africa, was forging new countries out of old ones and
    installing new regimes to replace fallen empires. In addition, the
    rise of European nationalism and the subsequent desire of European
    nations to affirm their national identity posed serious challenge to
    European Jewry. Establishing a homeland in historic Palestine seemed
    to offer an effective solution to Europe's chronic anti-Semitism and
    fulfill the centuries-long Jewish longing for the Holy Land.

    On 2 Nov. 1917, the Zionist Organization extracted the Balfour
    Declaration, which recognized Palestine as a Jewish homeland. In 1919,
    it submitted a six-point proposal for establishing a Jewish Palestine
    to the Peace Conference of Paris. Two points were particularly
    notable: the boundaries of Palestine would `extend on the west to the
    Mediterranean, on the north to the Lebanon, on the east to the Hedjaz
    railway and the Gulf of Akabah,' and the League of Nations was called
    upon to make Palestine a British mandate.

    The prospect of a Jewish homeland brought great excitement to Zionist
    leaders, as they realized that their dream is being transformed into
    reality. Many Zionist leaders did not fully grasp the direction of
    world history and the full consequences of reliving an ancient
    prophecy in modern times. Zionist leaders underestimated the reaction
    of the local population of Palestine, the Arab Middle East, and the
    rest of the Muslim world, to the formation of a Jewish State in the
    region. In an article by H. Sacher, published in the Atlantic Monthly
    in 1919 under the title `A Jewish Palestine,' the author, a Jewish
    Historian, argued in support of the founding of a Jewish State, and
    envisaged a harmonious and peaceful society in which all live together
    well. Jewish Palestine, he insisted, `will do justice between all the
    nationalities within its borders. It will establish the equality of
    men and men, and work toward democracy, political and economic. It
    will be one of the pillars of the League of Nations, and by its
    relationship to all the scattered communities of Israel, it will forge
    powerful links for the brotherhood of the peoples. In the Near East
    and the Middle East it will strive to replace the broken tyranny of
    the Turk by a harmonious cooperation between Jew, Arab, and Armenian.'

    Sacher saw in Palestine a place for self expression of religious and
    national identity long denied to European Jewry. Sacher portrayed the
    impact of an independent homeland on ordinary Jews in ways that
    revealed the impact of the homogenizing modern state and
    culture. `There he will see the Jewish faith developing freely,' he
    pointed out, `according to the law of its being, distracted neither by
    opposition, nor by surrender to an alien environment. There he will
    see the Jewish national spirit expressing itself in a society modeled
    on the Jewish idea of justice, in a Hebrew literature, in a Hebrew
    art, in the myriad activities which make the life of a people on its
    own soil, under its own sky.'

    Reality Check and Emerging Demography

    The sixty years that passed since the founding of the State of Israel
    have been traumatic, particularly for the Palestinian people, but
    increasingly to the world community. The migration of European Jews to
    Palestine began in earnest under the British mandate, and as the
    number of Jewish settlements in Palestine multiplied, Palestinians
    revolted repeatedly against Britain, in unsuccessful bids to gain
    independence. Independence was instead handed to the Zionist
    organization, which in 1948 declared the birth of the State of
    Israel. The war of independence, which was fought mainly against Arab
    militias, led to the displacement of 711,000 Palestinians, mostly in
    surrounding Arab countries.

    Today, more than 5 million Palestinians live in Diaspora mostly in
    Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Significant Palestinian communities also
    reside in the Gulf countries, Egypt, North Africa, and North
    America. These Palestinians are the subject of a debate over the
    `Palestinian right of return.' Israel continues to resist demands to
    allow Palestinians who were forced out during this war, which Arabs
    call al-Nakba (the Catastrophe), to return on the grounds that doing
    so would disturb the existing `demographic balance' and make the claim
    of a Jewish state unsustainable. Indeed, this fear seems to be the
    main reason why Israel has been reluctant to formally annex the West
    Bank and Gaza. Such an act would also violate international law. But
    Israel has consistently violated UN Security Council resolutions that
    clash with its own designs, such as its formal annexation of Syria's
    Golan Heights even though the UN considers such an annexation to be
    illegal.

    Despite exhaustive negotiations for peace of the last two decades,
    Israel continues to push towards achieving the Zionist dream of
    Greater Israel. The Roadmap announced by Bush in 2002 and his attempt
    to reinvigorate it last month during his visit to the Middle East, are
    the continuation of countless rounds of negotiation during the
    nineties. Bill Clinton led a series of negotiation as part of the Oslo
    agreement that aimed at establishing Palestinian state. The
    negotiation failed in 2000, when it became apparent that the outcome
    was far removed from the claims of a sovereign state and contiguous
    territories. Camp David eventually gave the Palestinians a disarmed
    set of Bantustans under de facto Israeli control.

    Throughout the last two decades the Israeli negotiated with their Arab
    peace partners with bad faith. They continued to build more
    settlements, confiscate more land, and to strengthen their grab over
    the territories as they engaged Palestinians in peace negotiations on
    the promise of Palestinian independence. Between 1993 and 2006, the
    number of settlers in the West Bank and Gaza doubled. The number of
    West Bank settlers increased from 11,600 in 1993 to 234,487 in
    2004. 2006 statistics shows that the number of settlers has exceeded
    268,400. The number of settlers in Gaza jumped from 4,800 in 1993 to
    7,826 in 2004, to drop to 0 after the Israeli government decided to
    withdraw unitarily from the Gaza strip.

    Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal under International
    law. Article 49, paragraph 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states:
    "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own
    civilian population into the territory it occupies". The International
    Court of Justice has, likewise, asserted in paragraph 120 of its
    Advisory Opinion of July 9, 2004 that the settlements are illegal.

    Jewish settlements also contradict the very spirit of Oslo and the
    Roadmap, which the United States considers to be the basis for ending
    the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Roadmap document published by
    the State Department in 2003 insists that `The settlement will resolve
    the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and end the occupation that began in
    1967, based on the foundations of the Madrid Conference, the principle
    of land for peace, UNSCRs 242, 338 and 1397, agreements previously
    reached by the parties, and the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince
    Abdullah ` endorsed by the Beirut Arab League Summit ` calling for
    acceptance of Israel as a neighbor living in peace and security, in
    the context of a comprehensive settlement.'

    Palestinian Misery and Double Standards

    Sacher's vision of Israel that `will do justice between all the
    nationalities within its borders,' has faded away. Palestinians who
    live in the West Bank and Gaza are deprived of their basic human
    rights, and subjected to a set of standards that is far removed from
    the ones administered in the Israeli settlements. The Israeli
    government applies Israeli law to the settlers and the settlements,
    practically annexing them to the State of Israel. The Separation Wall
    serves as an instrument for such annexation. The resulting system is a
    regime of legalized separation and discrimination. `This regime is
    based on the existence of two separate legal systems in the same
    territory, with the rights of individuals being determined by their
    nationality.' Palestinians who apply for building permits are often
    turned down, and when they build their houses without building permits
    are demolished by the Israeli Civil Administration, even when the
    construction is done on private land.

    The Israeli Civil Administration facilitates, on the other hand, the
    construction of Jewish settlements and by-pass roads, even when these
    encircle Palestinian towns and villages, and make movement in the West
    Bank extremely difficult. In the last eight years, the numerous check
    points that were constructed in the West Bank (and Gaza until the
    Israeli Unilateral withdrawal) have made the life of Palestinians
    miserable, and destroyed the already weak Palestinian economy.

    The squeeze policy adopted by the Israeli government against
    Palestinians did not stop at denying permits for new housing, but
    extends to confiscation of Palestinian land. The construction of what
    Israel calls Security Barrier, and what its critics refer to as the
    Apartheid Wall, is being used to confiscate Palestinian lands, and has
    often resulted in separating families, and occasionally making
    commuting between Palestinian localities extremely difficult, if not
    impossible.

    Somaia Barghouti, Chargé d'affaires of Permanent Observer
    Mission of Palestine to the United Nations, protested in a letter to
    the UN Secretary General, on January 26, 2005, the continuous
    confiscation of Palestinian land for no avail. `Israeli bulldozers
    have been razing land,' Barghouti stressed, `confiscated by the
    occupying Power from its Palestinian owners, in the area, including in
    the village of Iskaka, for the construction of the Wall. Indeed,
    Israel continues to construct the Wall despite the ruling by the
    International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion of 9 July 2004
    (A/ES-10/273 and Corr.1), on its illegality.' Barghouti went on to say
    `that Israel's construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian
    Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and its associated
    regime are contrary to international law, and that Israel is under an
    obligation to cease its construction of the Wall, to dismantle the
    structure situated therein, to repeal or render ineffective all
    legislative and regulatory acts relating thereto, and to make
    reparation for all damage caused by the construction of the
    Wall. Regrettably, the occupying Power has been doing exactly the
    opposite.'

    Logic of History and Power

    Modern Israel's predicament is clear: a nation created to liberate
    European Jewry from discrimination and oppression is increasingly
    guilty of the very practices it sought to escape. This reality has
    brought anguish even to many Jews. For decades, Israeli leaders have
    tried to use the country's military advantage to force Arab and
    Palestinian compliance. This worked for a while, as the early Zionist
    pioneers faced vanquished and illiterate Arab communities. But the
    policies of iron fists and excessive force by successive Israeli
    regimes have backfired. Israel is increasingly facing new generations
    of Palestinians who are determined to reclaim their honor and dignity
    and who are willing to risk their lives and pay a high cost to achieve
    freedom and self-determination.

    Some Israeli leaders have begun to realize that traditional approaches
    aimed at forcing the Palestinians to surrender to the Zionist project
    of Greater Israel no longer work. In a `New York Times' (14 Aug. 2005)
    article, Ethan Bronner quoted a senior Israeli official closely
    associated with Likud leaders as saying: `The fact that hundreds of
    them are willing to blow themselves up is significant," he said. `We
    didn't give them any credit before. In spite of our being the
    strongest military power in the Middle East, we lost 1,200 people over
    the last four years. It finally sank in to Sharon and the rest of the
    leadership that these people were not giving up.'

    During Dec. 2003, then deputy prime minister Ehud Olmert told Nahum
    Barnea of `Yediot Aharonot': `Israel will soon need to make a
    strategic recognition ... We are nearing the point where more and more
    Palestinians will say: `We're persuaded. We agree with [right-wing
    politician Avigdor] Lieberman. There isn't room for two states between
    the Jordan and the sea. All we want is the right to vote.' On the day
    they reach that point,' said Olmert, `we lose everything. ... I quake
    to think that leading the fight against us will be liberal Jewish
    groups that led the fight against apartheid in South Africa.' Now
    serving as Israel's prime minister, he repeated his concerns, albeit
    in more ambiguous language, upon his return from Annapolis Conference
    by telling `Haaretz' (28 Nov. 2007) that `the State of Israel cannot
    endure unless a Palestinian state comes into being.'

    Five years later, the two-state solution remains elusive. Pragmatic
    Israeli leaders have not been able to revise the logic of return. If
    modern Israel is a fulfillment of divine promise, it is difficult to
    argue against Greater Israel. Many Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims
    have developed profound doubts as to Israel's intentions and final
    borders. Many in the Middle East suspect that Israel still wants to
    fulfill the Biblical boundaries of Greater Israel, which extend far
    beyond modern Palestine. The late Yaser Arafat and Hafiz al-Assad are
    on record as protesting Israel's design to expand its boundaries to
    Lebanon, Syria, and even Iraq. In a special meeting with the UN
    Security Council in Geneva in September 1988, Arafat produced a
    document that `proved' Israel's expansionist goals: "This document is
    a `map of Greater Israel' which is inscribed on this Israeli coin, the
    10-agora piece." Describing Israel's boundaries as they appeared on
    that map, Arafat stressed that they include "all of Palestine, all of
    Lebanon, all of Jordan, half of Syria, two-thirds of Iraq, one-third
    of Saudi Arabia as far as holy Medina, and half of Sinai." (Middle
    East Quarterly, March 1994).

    Commenting on Arafat's argument, Daniel Pipes, the neoconservative
    American historian, specialist, and analyst of the Middle East,
    rejected the contention that the Greater Israel espoused by modern
    Zionism encompasses Syria and Jordan. Conceding that modern Zionist
    leaders and historians, including Theodor Herzl, made references to
    Jewish settlements in Syria and Jordan, Pipes insisted that these were
    personal views and do not represent established views on Israel's
    borders. Along with many other conservative Jews, however, he insists
    that Gaza and the West Bank must be within Israel's borders.

    While most Israelis are increasingly aware that using force has
    certain limitations and seem willing to compromise with Palestinians,
    a determined minority represented by the Likud and the ultra-religious
    parties is bent on pushing all the way. Avigdor Lieberman, leader of
    the Right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, resigned from Olmert's cabinet
    during January 2008 to protest the renewal of peace talks with the
    Palestinian Authority that seek to address Jerusalem's final
    status. The Israeli Right's position has strong support in the United
    States. Conservative American Jewish and Christian organizations have
    consistently backed the Likud and advocated a Greater Israel that
    extends to the West Bank and Gaza.

    In 1996, several leading American neoconservatives, among them Richard
    Perle (Pentagon policy adviser [resigned February 2004] and former
    Likud policy adviser), James Colbert (communications director, Jewish
    Institute for National Security Affairs), Charles Fairbanks,
    Jr. (former deputy assistant secretary, State Department), Douglas
    J. Feith (former undersecretary of defense for policy), and Robert
    Loewenberg (founder, Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political
    Studies [IASPS-Jerusalem]), authored "A Clean Break: A New Strategy
    for Securing the Realm," which was published by the Israeli-based
    IASPS. This political blueprint, meant for the incoming government of
    Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the Oslo peace process and reasserted
    Israel's claim to the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, it called for
    rejecting the principle of trading land for peace, established by the
    Oslo Agreement, and demanded the unconditional Palestinian acceptance
    of Likud's terms (peace for peace), removing Saddam Hussain from
    power, and reconstituting Iraq.

    The two-state solution has another aspect: the 5 million Palestinians
    living in the Diaspora, well-organized and strongly committed to their
    ancestral land, have organized their lives around the dream of
    return. In an essay entitled `It Is Always Eid in Palestine,' Yasmine
    Ali, a Palestinian-American who visited a Palestinian refugee camp in
    1999, describes her encounter with elementary students who have never
    seen Palestine: `¦ what really caught my eye was the `Wall
    Magazine,' which consisted of writings by Shatila children. There were
    several pages tacked to the bulletin board, listing qualities that the
    children had, in their minds, attributed to Palestine: `Palestine is a
    very, very beautiful land ... There is a sea of chocolate in Palestine
    ... Children are always happy in Palestine ... Women don't gossip in
    Palestine ... The streets are very clean in Palestine ... It is always
    Eid ["Feast Day"] in Palestine ... Parents don't die in Palestine.' I
    stared at that for a long time. It was indescribably poignant, how
    this obviously reflected their situation in Shatila camp. It reminded
    me of how the Jews in the ghettos of Poland and Germany and numerous
    other countries used to imagine Palestine as the Promised Land --
    indeed, how it has been imagined by so many the world over for
    thousands of years. And now by Palestinians themselves. Palestine, the
    Promised Land, once and forever. The irony was too bitter.'

    >From Power Play to Common Principles

    `[the Zionists pioneers believed that] the only language the Arabs
    understand is that of force,' wrote Ahad Ha'Am the leading Eastern
    European Jewish essayist, upon returning from a visit to Palestine in
    1891. Throughout of its conflicts with neighboring Arab countries,
    Israel has always had the advantage of superior fighting force. It has
    for decades succeeded to advance its claims to Palestine by creating
    facts on the ground. In addition of superior military that has
    acquired a reputation of invincibility, the construction zeal of
    Jewish settlements in the Holy Land has allowed Israel to grow and
    expand. For decades, fighting and building was done with great
    religious zeal.

    Years of Israeli mastery over Palestinians and the constant reliance
    on force to keep them in check have led to similar perceptions among
    Palestinians: that force is the only option available to counter
    Israeli expansion. The Israeli occupation has transformed the
    Palestinians, bringing about a generation of angry and determined
    militants convinced that the only language Israel understands is that
    of force.

    Force, however, does not bring a permanent and long lasting solution
    to conflicts. Might does not make right, is a principle borne by long,
    and regrettably repeated, historical experience. `The strongest is
    never strong enough to be always the master,' observed Rousseau in his
    Social Contract, `unless he transforms strength into right, and
    obedience into duty.' Israel has been expanding its domain not on the
    basis on any established system of law, but by the overwhelming power
    it has over ordinary Palestinians and its ability to create facts on
    the ground. The biblical account and historical grievances stem from
    the experience of the European Jewry, which is the basis of Western
    support, has not been accepted by Middle Eastern societies. The people
    of the Middle East see the divine promise as historically bound, and
    expect to be treated as people with equal rights and dignity.

    The impetus that drive the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is rooted in
    international struggle of the 18th and 19th centuries Europe, and has
    nothing to do with the logic of international relations based on the
    notion of right and international law expected by the citizens of 21st
    century. The logic that guided the establishment and expansion of
    Israel has focused more on the affirmation of Jewish identity and
    power, and less on justice and the right of Palestinians. This logic
    can be seen in the arguments of the foremost Zionist leader of the
    20th Century. "[T]hese days it is not right but might which prevails,'
    noted David Ben-Gurion. `It is more important to have force than
    justice on one's side," he added. He went on to say that in a period
    of "power politics, the powers that become hard of hearing, and
    respond only to the roar of cannons. And the Jews in the Diaspora have
    no cannons." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 191)

    Europe has already turned the page on its nationalist politics and
    colonial ambitions, while the Middle East is still engulfed in
    destructive wars rooted in religious differences and national
    aspirations. Furthermore, the appeal to religion for establishing
    political structures has inspired other actors to privilege religious
    affiliation over a system of rights and law. The Israeli-Palestinian
    conflict, if not quickly resolved, threatens to galvanize the world
    along religious lines and transform itself into a global conflict.

    Muslim militants throughout the world have already used Palestine as a
    central issue to galvanize support, and far Right groups in the West
    use the same issue to mobilize the West against Islam and
    Muslims. There is a dire need to begin a rational debate on how to
    address the Palestinian question calmly and on the basis the political
    values of freedom, equality, democracy, and justice.

    Globalization of the Conflict

    Not only did Israel fail to `establish the equality of men and men,'
    as Sacher had hoped it would when he published his vision of a Jewish
    Palestine nearly a century ago, it also failed to `replace the broken
    tyranny of the Turk by a harmonious cooperation between Jew, Arab, and
    Armenian.' Sacher the historian failed to anticipate the extent of the
    Arabs' and Muslims' resistance to the creation of an exclusively
    Jewish state. The reality is that since its inception, Israel has been
    engaged in numerous hostile exchanges with its neighbors. While it has
    managed to neutralize some old enemies, most notably the PLO, Egypt,
    and Jordan, it has created new and even fiercer ones, including Hamas,
    Hizbellah, and Iran.. Its peace with Egypt and Jordan remains quite
    fragile, resting as it does on the ability of two undemocratic regimes
    to keep their populations silent ` populations whose popular
    sentiments have always been pro-Palestinian.

    Israeli leadership has been forced to view any country in the region
    that express sympathy and support for the Palestinians as a potential
    enemy. Israel is constantly working to make sure that it is able to
    maintain a comfortable margin of military advantage. As a result,
    Israel has also felt duty obliged to check the rise of any military
    power in the region to ensure that its military superiority is never
    challenges. This has led to preemptive wars and strikes in the past
    against Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Israel currently
    urging the United States to undertake a preemptive military attacks
    against Iran if it does not stop enriching uranium for fear it can be
    used for military purposes. and has threatened that it will do so if
    need be.

    In recent years, the Palestinian conflict has deepened the divide
    between predominantly Muslim and Western countries. A 2007 survey by
    Gallup showed that 58% of Americans are sympathetic to Israeli with
    only 20% expressing sympathy toward Palestinians. 44% thought that the
    United State should not get involved in any diplomatic efforts to end
    the conflict, unless Palestinian recognize Israel first, while 25%
    thought the US should not do any thing about it. And that 57% thought
    that the US should not give any support to the Palestinian Authority,
    while 30% thought support must be contingent on recognizing
    Israel. This is quite removed a position than the one found in Arab
    and Muslim countries who have made repeated demands for immediate
    withdrawal of Israel from the territories its occupied since 1967, and
    have frequently expressed resentment of American support to Israeli
    policies and measures against Palestinians.

    For five years, nightly news programs in the Middle East have been
    bombarding their audiences with graphic pictures of the life in the
    West Bank and Gaza. Raids by Israeli military on town and villages,
    home demolitions, confiscation of land, assassination of militants,
    closures and blockades, impoverished and crowded neighborhoods, and
    similar images fill the TV screens on a daily basis. This has created
    deep bitterness and guilt as old and young helplessly watch
    Palestinian suffering. The picture of the Middle East conflict is
    almost diametrical opposite across the West-Middle East divide.

    Silencing Voices of Moderation

    There is little debate on the reality and consequences of the
    Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jimmy Carter pointed out in his recent
    book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that the political debate about
    the policies of the Israeli government is much more open and lively in
    Israel than it is in the US. `There are constant and vehement
    political and media debates in Israel concerning its policies in the
    West Bank,' Carter claimed, `but because of powerful political,
    economic, and religious forces in the U.S., Israeli government
    decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem
    dominate our media, and most American citizens are unaware of
    circumstances in the occupied territories.'

    Several American political leaders and scholars blame the lack of
    political debate and balanced media coverage of the
    Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the Jewish Lobby, a loose coalition of
    pro-Israel organizations devoted to promoting Israeli
    interests. Carter himself felt the brunt of the Lobby upon the
    publication of his recent book on Palestine. The book was deemed by
    conservative Jewish groups to be anti-Semitic because it expresses
    sympathy to the plight of the Palestinians, and brought attention to
    the Israeli politics that aim at fragmenting the Occupied Territories
    and subjugating the Palestinian people.

    Another courageous attempt to stimulate the debate about Israel's
    policy in the Occupied Land, and there consequences for the United
    States was made by the two foremost political scientist in the United
    States, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Their recent book, The
    Jewish Lobby, an expansion of a paper they published under the same
    title, brings to the fore the strategies employed by pro-Israel
    lobbyists, and unveils the extent of their influence on US foreign
    policy towards the Middle East. One underlying strategy illustrated by
    Mearsheimer and Walt is the `strong prejudice against criticizing
    Israeli policy,' and that `putting pressure on Israel is considered
    out of order.'

    The Jewish Lobby provides examples of pressure tactics employed by
    conservative Jewish groups to frustrate efforts by prominent American
    Jews to balance the Israeli policies towards Palestinian and to curb
    the Israeli excesses. The book documents, for example, the backlash
    against Edgar Bronfman Sr, the president of the World Jewish Congress,
    for writing a letter to President Bush in 2003 urging him to persuade
    Israel to curb construction of its controversial `security fence'. His
    critics accused him of `perfidy' and argued that `it would be obscene
    at any time for the president of the World Jewish Congress to lobby
    the president of the United States to resist policies being promoted
    by the government of Israel.'

    Likewise, Seymour Reich the president of the Israel Policy Forum, was
    denounced and accused of being `irresponsible,' for advising
    Condoleezza Rice in November 2005 to ask Israel to reopen a critical
    border crossing in the Gaza Strip. His critics insisted that `There is
    absolutely no room in the Jewish mainstream for actively canvassing
    against the security-related policies . . . of Israel.' The severity
    of the attacks forced Reich to announce that `the word `pressure' is
    not in my vocabulary when it comes to Israel.'

    Prospects for Fair Solution

    The conflict in Palestine threatens to destabilize world politics and
    embolden fundamentalist demands for religiously exclusive political
    states. The principle of rule of law has suffered immensely under the
    climate of fear that followed the terrorist attacks on the American
    homeland on September 11, 2001. Extremists in both the East and the
    West are working hard to deepen the divide, and turn a political
    conflict into a religious war. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is
    being used by the far right in both Muslim and Western countries to
    justify bigotry and to demonize people on the other side of the
    divide.

    There is a dire need to use our creative imagination and to find a
    just and equitable solution to the conflict. The logic of `creating
    facts on the ground' and `might makes right' must give way to the
    spirit of the age, of equal dignity and the rule of law. It might be
    well the case that conflict might continue to play itself out until
    complete victory or complete defeat is achieved. But this would
    definitely be a tragic moment, as it would signal the triumph of force
    over morality and rationality. It would be a tragic moment, because by
    then, the conflict would have created overwhelming misery on all sides
    that no human being would be willing to contemplate.

    The solution to the conflict must not be based on Jewish, Christian,
    or Muslim prophecies that would only inflame hate and mistrust among
    the followers of the three religious traditions. It should, rather, be
    based on the prophetic principles cherished by the three religious
    traditions. It must be based on the shared committed to the sanctity
    of human life, and the universally accepted principles of equal
    dignity, freedom of religion, democracy, and the rule of law.

    Will prophetic principles triumph over self-styled and self-fulfilled
    prophecies? I do not know the answer, but I do not believe it is
    preordained as the fundamentalists of the three religions would like
    us to believe. I do, rather, believe that the answer to the question
    hinges on the actions of members of the three communities. I do hope
    that people of reason and deep faith privilege the clear principles
    demanded by their religions and international conventions over vague
    prophecies interpreted by fallible and rationally limited and
    emotionally charged human beings.


    http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/vie w/full/51468
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