Are we selling the resistance down the river? Abdallah El-Ashaal* reflects on the rhetoric of recent "peacemaking" There is more to the Sharm El-Sheikh and Aqaba summits than meets the eye. A new era is beginning, and a word of advice is due to our politicians, before it is too late. The future of this region belongs to its people. No one, irrespective of his power, position, or good intentions, has the right to muzzle the views of others. No vision of regional peace, however worthy the purposes behind it, can be achieved unless the parties active in the conflict are prepared to endorse it. Any approach which supports might over right is doomed, for what the region needs is a just and comprehensive peace -- not a deal that is partial and biased. Some may argue that, in Sharm El-Sheikh and Aqaba, Washington has stood by Israel while the Arabs stood by the Palestinians. What actually happened was that America asked Israel to accept the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 and take some goodwill steps along the way. Meanwhile, the Arabs promised the Palestinians they would help them fight terrorism. In addition, the Arabs issued a statement after the Sharm El-Sheikh talks in which they said that terror is a threat to humanity and peace and can never be justified, not even by occupation. So in a sense, there was no disagreement between the Sharm and Aqaba summits. Their common conclusion was that the history of the region is one of conflict between the forces of "peace", as represented by Israel (with which certain Arab parties have belatedly sought to associate themselves), and the forces of "terrorism", as represented by those who resist Israel (militarily or politically). In other words, Israel has always been right. It has used force for a very long time, but it only did so in order to get its neighbours to see the light. And finally, they did. Of course, no one hates peace. And no one likes terror. What is at dispute is not the value of the realities, but the sense the two words have in our discourse. At both the Sharm and Aqaba summits, the definition of these terms remained unclear. For Israel, peace is what Sharon described, albeit with extreme circularity, in Aqaba on 4 June 2003, when he said that a lasting peace requires lasting security, and that this lasting security is what provides Israel with a lasting peace. Israel's view of how security and peace are interlinked is an integral part of how Israel sees the world. Israel is obsessed with security. It exaggerates its meaning and prerequisites, and equates the realisation of peace with the very possibility of its own existence. Sharon, in his brief and precise speech in Aqaba, made it clear that his foremost responsibility is to the security of the Jewish people and the Jewish state. US President Bush responded by providing both personal and American assurances that the United States backed Israel's security. Sharon's acceptance of the roadmap, while wrapped up in various reservations, hinges on one point: Israel's security. In the Israeli prime minister's view, the purpose of the Palestinian state to which he appeared to commit himself is not to secure Palestinian autonomy, but to act as a mainstay of Israel's security and welfare. Washington fully endorses the theory of Israeli security expounded by Sharon. This American endorsement has some serious consequences. Firstly, it leads to the conclusion that Israel should be allowed to own all types of weapons, while the Arabs should not. This is because Israel is always under threat, regardless of how powerful it is. Israel, moreover, has officially declared that it will not scrap its nuclear and mass destruction weapons altogether, although it may reconsider its stockpiles of such weapons if the situation in the region were such as to give it a sense of greater peace and security. But the peace that Israel wants is one that makes it feel completely secure, irrespective of what other parties in the region may feel or how it may trample on their interests. From Israel's point of view, any arms obtained by any country in the region are never a means to that country's own security, but rather a threat to Israel's peace. Secondly, anyone opposing or resisting Israeli actions, even -- or especially -- if those actions should be acts of occupation, assassination or confiscation, is to be considered a threat to Israel's security. Of course, Palestinian resistance is completely unacceptable, because it directly challenges Israel's actions and claims, and because it is waged by the legitimate owners of the land. Resistance inevitably means fighting against a much stronger foe. As a result, it may resort to questionable means, and this in turn raises the issue of terror. This kind of terror is, of course, a direct threat to the kind of peace which Israel would prefer to enforce. And the more the threat of the resistance increases, the more it becomes identifies with its national and religious roots. Clearly, national and religious defiance on the part of the Palestinians are particularly scandalous, because they represent a challenge to Israel's insistence on its own religious purity. Continued resistance to occupation is the biggest obstacle to "peace" from Israel's point of view. Resistance is necessarily unacceptable terror, and must be suppressed and replaced with more "amicable" procedures. So much was stated in Abu Mazen's speech. The Palestinian prime minister expressed full sympathy with the suffering of the Jewish people, promised to stop the Palestinians from adding to this suffering, and pledged to take a firm stand against armed resistance. The Arabs' decisions and declarations made in Sharm El-Sheikh echoed this sentiment precisely. Up until the Sharm El-Sheikh summit, however, the Arab position had been rather different. Hitherto, they had taken the view that Arab land and rights should be restored in return for limited normalisation with Israel. And even in exchange for full withdrawal and settlement of all final issues, including Jerusalem, normalisation could not be expected to be smooth, full, or enforced. This is because an illegitimate action, and its reversal, should not be rewarded. Rewarding the wrongdoer would be in violation of a basic legal precept that has stood since at least the time of the Romans. So, what do the Arabs, Israel, and the United States mean when they refer to "terror" that has to be fought? The statements of the Sharm and Aqaba summits leave us in no doubt. There is only one type of terror that is being addressed; namely, Palestinian operations that challenge occupation and Israel's acts of genocide. Such operations should be stopped. The groups that mount them should be disbanded. Their acts should be criminalised -- in the past, present and future. And their sources of finance and weapons should be dried up. The only argument being used here is that this resistance constitutes terror against Israel. No distinction is made between resistance to occupation and attacks on targets within Israel. No distinction is made between resistance to military occupation and actions against civilian targets. Any resistance, so long as it is directed against Israel, irrespective of the occupation and its policies, is seen as terror. And terror is something that the Alliance should stand against, even as they condemn the Arabs' naiveté for confusing it with true resistance. Any attempt to distinguish between terror and resistance against occupation, in Israel's specific case, is seen as a flagrant act in support of terror. In contrast, what Israel's army and settlers do every day is a sacred struggle to guarantee Israel's security -- for Israel's security is important to the entire world, as Condoleezza Rice once said. In other words, peace-loving Israel should fight Palestinian terrorism, regardless of what the Palestinians may say and regardless of the fact that Israel has never promised to stop its acts of genocide against the Palestinians. I wonder what would happen if a Palestinian army, equipped with the latest weapons, were to do to the Jews what their army is doing today to the Palestinians? Obviously, this scenario is quite beyond the bounds of practical possibility. But even if it were not, I do not doubt that an international Alliance would instantly be assembled to exterminate the Palestinian aggressors. As it is, an Alliance has been put together to exterminate the Palestinians, even while they are still victims of aggression. For some reason, the world cannot have peace until the Palestinians are brought to heel. Washington has the power to bring true peace and security to the region, if it so wished. For example, it could force Israel to stop its aggression and desist from its acts of genocide against the Palestinians. At which point, the resistance would stop too, reprisals would end, and commitments would be honoured. Israel should withdraw from the Palestinian territories, negotiations should resume, and the suffering of the Palestinians should end. Resistance is a moral and patriotic duty. The record of those who fought the occupation should always be a source of pride. Yet, resistance is only a means to an end. Once the Palestinians and their land are free, resistance groups could turn into political parties and become part of Palestinian democracy. We should not turn our backs on the values we cherish. If we must learn from Israel, there is one thing that comes to mind: the way Israel treats the people who fought for its creation and eventually made it so powerful. Israel has become so powerful, it is now trying to bend the rules. We still have our basic rights to defend, and we must not allow our store of values to be depleted. We must not turn our back on our freedom fighters. Admittedly, the times are hard, but nevertheless, it is imperative that we hang on to our faith. Perhaps our fellow writers should remind the nation of something Egypt's National Charter noted back in 1962. The Charter lamented the fact that thousands of Egyptian youths had been taught an inaccurate version of Egyptian history, one in which the true protagonists were lost in the misty fog of self-doubt while those who betrayed the nation were paraded in garlands of sainthood and veneration. Likewise in Palestine today. A just peace is still possible, but Palestinian resistance is an integral part of the history of the Palestinian people, and we cannot turn our backs on its sacrifices. True resistance against true terror is the only way to achieve true peace. Peace should aim at ending occupation, not resistance. * The writer is assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister.
