Peace needs more support for breakthrough
By Ray Hanania
Special to the Sentinel, Posted February 10, 2005
When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reached across the table at Sharm El-Sheikh this week to launch a new peace initiative, they weren't achieving anything new.
How many times in the past has the same scenario played out, only to be sabotaged by the violent whims of extremists?
That is the true challenge facing any Palestinian-Israeli peace accord. Agreeing on what needs to be done is far easier than staying the course when extremists strike.
Serious hurdles remain in the way of a final peace based on the two-state solution with a free and secure Israel and a viable Palestinian state. But they can be overcome if leaders on both sides stand firm and will not be blackmailed into abandoning peace when violence occurs and the public screams with emotion for revenge. Palestinians and Israelis must be ready to stand together to protect peace when violence strikes. Rather than suspend peace talks in the wake of this expected violence, both sides must be ready to respond by increasing their efforts, leading their people out of a cycle of emotion, pain and suffering that has so far made peace nearly impossible.
Jewish and Palestinian leaders, and their organizations here and abroad, must unequivocally endorse the Abbas-Sharon declaration.
All sides can contribute toward peace by adjusting their rhetoric. Peace cannot succeed on promises alone. Palestinians and Israelis must show human compassion and stop seeing themselves as the sole victims of each other's violence.
Israelis must accept certain inevitabilities: They must return the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, dismantle all of the settlements including those that circle East Jerusalem. And the price of peace demands that Jerusalem be shared and the rights of Palestinian refugees be addressed through a fair and just compromise.
The Israelis must set aside their arrogance and power and assume their share of the responsibility and blame. You cannot take the lands, homes, possessions, rights and dignity of a people and not expect them to react in anger or violence.
Palestinians bear a special burden caused by the reality of the events that have taken place over the past four years, one of the most bloodied and brutal in Palestinian-Israeli relations. Palestinians must denounce the murder of Jews as quickly and as forcefully as they denounce the murder of Palestinians.
Abbas and the Palestinian people must be ready to respond with force when any Palestinian individual or organization engages in any form of violence, especially acts of suicide bombings.
If Hamas, Islamic Jihad or any other Palestinian group commits an act of violence, Abbas must arrest and jail those responsible. This is not to satisfy Israeli demands, but to underscore the fact that no one may take the law into his own hands. The will of the Palestinian people as exercised in the recent democratic elections must be respected.
The United States has a special challenge to resume its role as an aggressive arbiter for peace. President Bush must prove his commitment to peace by equally pressuring both sides to make the tough choices.
But Bush can't do it alone. Congress, which often acts more like an extremist organization than an institution of principled democracy when it comes to the Middle East, must stop being an obstacle to peace.
That means Congress must abandon one-sided, partisan policies such as by rejecting the proposal to declare the Palestine Liberation Organization a "terrorist" group. American Jewish and Palestinian organizations and leaders who publicly and unequivocally embrace peace and speak out against violence on both sides should be rewarded, recognized and strengthened.
Groups such as the national Jewish-American organization Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and the newly established Palestinian-American grassroots group, the American Task Force on Palestine, based in Washington, should be brought in by the White House in a high-profile way to nurture peace among Palestinian and Jewish constituents.
Difficulties and pain remain between the encouraging words of Abbas and Sharon at Sharm el-Sheikh and achieving a final peace.
Palestinians and Israelis must not only be ready to sit down together to sign promises of peace, they must also be ready to stand up together in the face of a violence we all know is certain to come.
Ray Hanania is a nationally syndicated columnist and managing editor of TheArabStreet.com. He also is the former national President of the Palestinian American Congress.
Copyright © 2005, Orlando Sentinel
No comments:
Post a Comment