Imposing new realities won't make peace, writes Mursi Atallah Whatever the causes and spirit of the optimism that lay behind the Arab decision to attend the Annapolis peace meeting -- they inspired me, after considerable hesitation, to describe the decision to attend as a reaffirmation of the credibility of the Arab resolve to work for peace even though all the signs were that it would produce, at best, half a step towards a solution -- we must remain wary of getting our hopes up. Even if the meeting kick-starts the peace process there are no guarantees that the process will succeed in attaining the just and lasting peace to which we aspire. I do not believe it is unjust to maintain that the reason that most plans devised by American policy- makers for the Middle East have collapsed or backfired resides in their faulty understanding of the history of this region and the mentality of its peoples. The crucial issue, which existed well before Annapolis, is whether the US administration can bring itself to engage in a process of introspection that will enable it to learn lessons from its repeated failure in dealing with the various problems and crises of the Middle East, foremost among which is the Arab- Israeli conflict, long the source of regional dilemmas. It is to be regreted that Washington's policy-makers have yet to realise that their country's massive military might can be a temporary punitive or disciplinary tool but that, in the long term, it will not serve to repress the will of a nation or to annihilate its history, culture and civilisation. Similarly, and with equal regret, Washington is still unable to approach any proper understanding of the dreams and aspirations of the Arab people. These legitimate yet modest dreams do not merit the arrogant scorn and the constant bludgeoning meted out to them following promptings from Tel Aviv which advises that heavy use of the stick combined with small pieces of the carrot is the best way to bring the Arabs to their knees and force them to toe the line. The American insistence that the Palestinians and Arabs recognise the Jewish character of the Israeli state as a condition for proceeding with the peace process is not only a form of intimidation but also another instance of the arrogance of might which has intensified the inhabitants' revulsion towards American policy in the region. The crux of the problem resides not so much in the distance between the positions that need to be bridged but in a general climate that arouses suspicions over Washington's commitment to seek a viable political solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict founded on UN resolutions and the principles of international legitimacy. If the US is ever to allay such suspicions it must take some steps to demonstrate the earnestness of its intent to turn over a new leaf in its conduct of international relations in general and of its relations with the countries of this region in particular. Only then will it be possible to draw a close to this era of communicative drought, when only the power of might held sway and the dominant tone was the imperative, demanding the rest of the world to label legitimate resistance "terrorism" and state terror "resistance" whenever it was convenient for Washington. Now is the time for the US to explore a new concept, one that holds that America's strength lies in the power to reconcile, as opposed to the power to dictate what constitutes democracy and human rights and who upholds democracy and human rights. The mind reels at how often the renegade state of yesterday is hailed as a "moderate" state today and how heads of state lauded for their wisdom and foresight in the past are condemned as evil tyrants now. The only common denominator between these fluctuating labels is American material interests. One does not have to dig far in the past to come up with an example. In the 1980s Saddam Hussein was the West's bosom buddy. He could do no wrong as long as he fought an eight- year long war on behalf of the West against Iran, with the dual aim of overthrowing the revolutionary regime in Tehran and of luring the region's financial resources into the Western arms industry so as to recuperate every last cent the Arabs earned as a result of the oil price rise that was one of the laurels of victory in the October 1973 War. But no sooner had that erstwhile ally served his purpose than he was hunted down as a tyrant and criminal through a protracted series of wars, blockades and embargoes, culminating in the occupation of Iraq and his execution. Let us take another example regarding the Arab- Israeli conflict. Never in the history of this conflict has the US so much as hinted that Zionist Jews invaded Palestine and turned out its original inhabitants by force of arms. In fact, what we hear is the constant drumming on the theme of Palestinian terrorists thirsting after Israeli blood, suggesting to anyone with no knowledge of the conflict that the invaders were the Arabs and that the Zionists are the ones who liberated their land. After the establishment of the Hebrew state, which rapidly sprawled beyond the armistice lines of 1949, the US refused to call the immediate consequence of the Israeli aggression of 1967 a foreign occupation of Arab land. Instead, it refers to this situation, the effects of which continue to plague us today, as a problem that needs to be solved through negotiations between the two sides. Since then, nothing the Israelis have done to obstruct all attempts to reach an equitable solution has ruffled consciences in Washington and driven them to take a stance against the injustices arising from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. The peace they called for in Annapolis needs a new climate and fresh set of concepts. This is where America must take the lead, shedding the language of the era of might makes right and the attendant imposition of double-standards whereby countries that cling to their fundamental rights to sovereignty are stamped as renegade and others that fall in with American demands and sometimes lay their sovereign rights at Washington's feet are proclaimed praiseworthy moderates, even if yesterday they had been on Washington's blacklist. The official Israeli line, from demanding recognition of the Jewishness of the state through to the refusal to withdraw to the pre-June 1967 borders and the insistence upon excluding Jerusalem and right of return from the negotiating agenda, not only proclaims arrogance but an inability to summon the will and courage to build a true and lasting peace with the Palestinians. Not to be sidetracked by the details and machinations behind the scenes in Annapolis requires that we keep in mind an important fact. For years Israel has worked to wed the philosophy of Labour Zionism, which seeks to gradually impose de facto realities on the ground, with the philosophy of Zionist romanticism and the dream of a Greater Israel. Yet eventually the Israelis discovered that in spite of their overwhelming military strength, their economic prowess and US support and protection, they are not the only players in the field capable of determining the outcome of the game. The Israelis plunged headlong into a sea of illusions when, against a background of the despair and frustration that swept the West Bank and Gaza following the June 1967 War, they decided to allow a little economic revival in Palestine by letting the Palestinians work in Israel, turning the Palestinian market into an outlet for Israeli products which could then be smuggled to other Arab countries. They imagined that normalisation with the Arab world would inevitably follow the Palestinian acceptance of a form of normalisation that offered them at least the minimum for survival at the cost of their political rights and the shelving of any national expression. With the October 1973 War, which gave an enormous moral boost to the Arab world in general and the Palestinians in particular, Israeli illusions began to crack. The movement of protest and resistance against the Israeli occupation gradually gained impetus and eventually erupted in the first Palestinian Intifada of 1987, the flames of which only subsided when Israel was forced to face reality and go to Oslo and sign the first peace treaty with the Palestinians. Once the clouds of illusions were dispelled, the Israelis had to come to terms with a couple of hard facts: a Palestinian people did exist on Palestinian land and unless Israel recognised this the future of the Hebrew state would remain uncertain, regardless of the instruments of might and influence at its disposal. Around this time, several conflicting political and cultural trends began to surface, a phenomenon that manifested itself with tragic vividness with the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in front of a rally of more than 100,000 Israelis in support of peace with the Palestinians. On that day the world caught its first real glimpse of a powerful and increasingly influential trend in Israeli public opinion, a trend that refuses to proceed down the road to peace, whether on the grounds of the "demographic bomb" that would eventually imperil the Jewish character of the state or on the grounds that peace would entail relinquishing the dream of a Greater Israel. Israel's inability to summon the resolve for peace dominated the premierships of Shimon Peres, Netanyahu and Barak (from 1995 to 2001). Then Sharon was swept into power on the heels of the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000 and on the strength of his promise to quell the uprising in a hundred days, after which he would jettison all the peace agreements signed with the Palestinians and impose his own definitive solution, even if that involved genocide. It was another illusion, of course. A hundred days turned to a thousand and with each passing day it became more and more obvious that, no matter how brutal his onslaught and how savagely he deployed his arsenal, Sharon could not force the Palestinians to their knees. When he fell into a coma he bequeathed a heavy legacy to his successor, Ehud Olmert, who reverted to the tried and tested game of foot-dragging behind a front of token inducements to the Palestinians backed by intimidation. I have little doubt that the next phase will be among the most significant in the history of the Palestinian cause. It will require great awareness, flexibility and foresight to avoid tactical and strategic mistakes. The Palestinian dream of independence, statehood, the recovery of Jerusalem, the dismantling of Israeli settlements and a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees must reign above personal and partisan considerations and above the Palestinian power struggle. So what are the next steps? If the US is sincere in its desire to see the Annapolis conference set in motion a process that will usher in a true peace, it must persuade Israel that peacemaking must be governed by principle, foremost among which is that you cannot make peace through aggression and the occupation of other people's land by force of arms. In addition, Washington must withhold automatic blessing of everything Israel says and does, particularly when it comes to Israel's changing realities on the ground so as to back the Palestinians into making fundamental concessions that Israel can then reciprocate at no cost to itself. For the Arab and Palestinian delegations that went to Annapolis to reaffirm their continued desire for peace the starting point for any serious negotiating process resides in a clear framework of principles. Then, as history has taught us, the rest is contingent upon which side best deploys such negotiating weapons as clear and enlightened minds, and sharp and cogent reasoning supported by incontrovertible evidence. Nor do I doubt that the Arab and Palestinian parties are acutely aware of the vast difference between moderation and apathy, the former being the exercise of the intellect in the defence of right, the latter being a negative extremism borne of exaggerated fears. Rashness is not the only sign of extremism. Fear, cowardliness and submissiveness epitomise passive extremism. There are several factors on which the Palestinians and Arabs can draw in order to build a strong and cohesive negotiating position. Firstly, Israel needs a peace agreement as much as the Arabs do. The trouble here is that the peace agreement Israel is looking for is a made-to-order one, tailored to meet its own security needs without considering the security and historic rights of the other parties. Second, the international community is now largely convinced that the reason peace efforts ground to a standstill in recent years is Israel's determination to ignore the principles and terms of reference adopted in the Madrid peace conference of 1991, the most important of these being the exchange of land for peace and the explicit recognition by all parties of the legitimate rights of the other parties in accordance with the provisions of international resolutions. Whether Annapolis proves to be a half-step towards a solution or merely another lost opportunity rests not just on the Israelis and the US but will also be contingent on the Arabs' ability to determine the differences between responding to peace initiatives as a way of gauging the true pulse of other parties and hurling themselves at peace at any cost. If there is a single message the Arabs and Palestinians should convey to the world it is that they are seeking a true and lasting peace, and that such a peace cannot be fabricated through the imposition of de facto realities or manipulating distorted balances of power.
