In politics, it is always easy to predict failure; harder is creating the conditions for success, writes Abdel-Moneim Said There are two ways to look at the Palestinian agreement, with the Arab League's blessing, followed by the Israeli agreement to enter into indirect negotiations over final status issues. One is to hone in on the obstacles, indeed the chasms and mountains, which have to be crossed and, then, sink into a gloomy pessimism based on the vision of yet another inevitable failure in the long chain of failures in the "peace process". The other is to search for the ways and means to make these negotiations a success story in the history of the Palestinian cause, and what has now conventionally become known as the Middle East conflict. The first approach is the easy way. The arguments come handed to you on a plate. They start by seizing upon the word "indirect" and protesting that the talks are not even of the level reached by state parties when they realise that the cost of conflict is higher than the cost of resolution. Indeed, there is no solid proof that the people in Palestine or Israel have reached this conviction, which suggests that they only agreed to negotiate in order to please third parties which -- out of interests of their own or perhaps in the interests of all mankind -- want to find a way out of an intractable historic conflict that has weighed so heavily on the world for so many decades. The third parties, here, are the US and all other Western nations that have come to realise, correctly, that the persistence of the Arab-Israeli conflict constitutes a thorn in their relations with the Islamic world and aggravates their current dilemma in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it appears that fate has brought all rivals and contestants to dead ends. But negotiations, whether direct or indirect, do not succeed in order to please third parties. Until the principals are prepared to take the steps necessary to make peace, the other parties inclusive of superpowers can do no more than show their willingness to do their best to help. When Egypt and Syria reached three disengagement treaties with Israel in 1974 and 1975 and when indirect negotiations brokered by Kissinger and, subsequently, direct negotiations between Amman and Tel Aviv culminated in the Egyptian-Israeli and Jordanian-Israeli peace treaties, it was because the parties directly concerned were ready for peace and prepared to sustain the costs of these historic opportunities. What brings the principals to this point? Material and moral attrition, combined with the certainty that total victory is impossible at least in the short or middle term, as well as the realisation that the future following an accord holds excellent opportunities for a better life. Also necessary is popular unity at home behind a leadership having the courage to make tough decisions and to follow through on them without wavering. In the history of the world's major conflicts there have always been "extremist" groups that imagined that history was on their side and that time was in their favour. These groups were invariably better at manoeuvring to spoil available opportunities than at seizing opportunities to work towards constructive goals. What observers tend to forget is that there are limits to the amount of time great powers can dedicate to a conflict or dispute between other parties. There was a time when the whole world forgot the domestic conflict in Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal. There were times when the world put the Arab-Israeli conflict out of mind because it was unsolvable. Few are paying attention these days to what is happening in Somalia. The world has not only learned how to disregard conflicts; it has also invented new ways for managing their side effects. On the basis of the foregoing criteria we can easily conclude that the path of indirect negotiations will lead nowhere. A mere glance at the Fatah-Hamas divide on the Palestinian front tells us that the condition of unity does not obtain. A simultaneous glance at the domestic front in Israel is sufficient to inform us that it is unified, but on aggressive and expansionist attitudes and policies -- it has been a long time since an Israeli government has had the popularity and parliamentary majority enjoyed by Netanyahu and his clique. Clearly, too, neither side seems to feel at the end of their tether, or to have despaired of attaining its ultimate quest, whether it is the creation of Greater Israel for one side or the creation of a Palestinian state on the whole of historic Palestine for the other. Both have tested the world's patience many times and both have the capacity to abort direct or indirect negotiations, through provocative settlement construction or through acts of violence that close off all avenues for dialogue. As logical as all this may appear, the easy approach -- dismissing negotiations from the outset and giving politicians and diplomats a holiday -- works entirely in Israel's favour. Israel not only effectively controls the land, it also possesses a vast ability to abuse the rights of the Palestinian people and to use various forms of intimidation or enticement to drive them out of Jerusalem and then out of the remaining Palestinian territories. In fact, this process is already in progress in the laying of the groundwork for isolated Palestinian cantons that can eventually be picked off one by one. Bear in mind, too, that in spite of the mounting tensions between the US and Israel over settlement construction, it would be a grave mistake to bank on these tensions escalating to a rift, all the more so if no one is around to help Barack Obama succeed in his mission. Israel is not the only power to benefit from sustaining the status quo; there are radical forces in the region that thrive on turning failure to resolve the Palestinian issue to the service of a political agenda that aims at creating chaos and rebellion in Arab countries. Clearly then, there will be a horrible price to pay unless we look at negotiations in another way. What we must do is to change the framework in which the negotiating process is conducted with the aim of ensuring that the Palestinian people obtain their legitimate rights against the backdrop of a stable regional environment. It would not be the first time this region experienced such a contextual shift. Egypt succeeded in putting its weight and influence behind such a shift following Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in the late 1970s, with the result that we regained all our occupied land. A similar phenomenon followed the war to liberate Kuwait, when Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria spearheaded a drive that completely altered the climate in the region, clearing the way for Jordan to regain its territory and paving the way, for the first time in the history of the Palestinian cause, for the creation of a Palestinian state. The key to the second approach is the Arab peace initiative, which was approved by all members of the Arab League. This initiative has the potential to serve as the basis of a project that will not only resolve the Arab- Israeli conflict but also spur the reconstruction of the entire Middle East. Quite simply, until the majority of the Israelis can see their future in the region after a settlement they will continue to flock behind their current leadership. Unless Obama knows that there are people in the Arab world ready to translate the Arab initiative into action, his ability to stand up against domestic pressures will weaken. He also has a long agenda and he cannot afford to keep many crucial items pending on a single issue, no matter how important it is. While the head of US Central Command General David Petraeus and other top military staff with Republican sympathies feel that the persistence of the Middle East conflict is harmful to US interests, it is also true that the definition of US interests is not immutable, especially when failure is constant to certain policies. The opportunity presented by indirect negotiations, like all opportunities in history, is contingent upon those who are ready to take advantage of them. The Palestinians, the Arabs and Israel have forfeited countless opportunities and the result has always been more extremism, violence and chaos.
