The keys to peace lie in Arab hands, writes Amin Howeidi* As the end of his second term in office approaches, President George Bush has decided to call for a peace conference to address the intricate problems of our war-plagued, justice-deprived region. A peace conference would do just fine, but not a capitulation conference. A peace conference is where interlocutors seek a balance of interests, whereas a capitulation conference focuses on the existing balance of power. Now, power is an elusive thing. You can have it one day and lose it the next. The best thing power can get you is a temporary solution. A balance of interests, however, can achieve long- term results, for parties to the deal would want to make it stick. In 1999: Victory without War, former US president Richard Nixon says that a perfect peace is one that involves a settlement of all disagreements, which is unlikely. But a real peace is one that gives everyone something worth keeping. Nixon argues that peace must bring about some justice and security for all those involved. Full security for one side can mean a lack of security for the other side, he warns. Diplomacy has worked out in the past. The Camp David peace agreement of 1978, the Israeli-Syrian agreement of 1974, and the Israeli-Jordanian agreement of 1994 have all stuck. And yet there is no peace between Arabs and Israelis. The reason is that Israel is still refusing to give back Arab occupied land -- against all UN resolutions. Meanwhile, the US has rewarded Israeli intransigence with a $3 billion increase in annual assistance until 2017. The fact that Israel is still occupying Arab land, assassinating Palestinian leaders, and bombing residential neighbourhoods doesn't seem to bother American politicians much. President Bush announced the increase in aid to Israel right after calling for an international peace conference. This reminds me of something one former US secretary of state once said. When you ask Israel to make peace it refuses because it has no weapons and feels vulnerable, Henry Kissinger proffered. And when you give it more weapons it feels so good about itself it loses interest in peace, he added. Now Bush seems to be calling on Israel to make peace while giving it the incentive not to do so. Once the conference is held, everyone will come with their own list of demands. The US, which calls for the conference, is more interested in Iraq than the Arab-Israeli conflict. The US will come to the conference thinking of how to get the Arabs to help it out in Iraq, and perhaps even in Afghanistan -- which is fine, but only at a price. What exactly is the US ready to offer? Politics is an act of give-and- take, and we should always make sure that what we're taking is worth what we're giving. Politics is akin to a big marketplace where the only medium of transactions is interests. So before the conference is held, the Arabs, and perhaps Iran too, should ask the Americans what they're ready to offer. Iraq, Iran and the Arabs can help America out of its current ordeal. In sum, the US is in a trap and we have the key. Israel too needs the conference. Israel has been fighting a constant war and getting nowhere. Israel wanted to redraw its borders but couldn't, because of the resistance in both Gaza and Lebanon. Now Israel is tired of war but afraid of peace. It feels trapped in war and is afraid of getting trapped in peace. Again, we have the solution to Israel's dilemma, although the Israelis won't admit it. We should name our price before handing it the key. Israel has the land and we have the peace. Once Israel hands us the land, we can hand it the peace. The land that Israel controls is burning with fire, and only the peace that we control can extinguish that fire. Again, it's all give- and-take, peace for land, just as we said in the Arab peace initiative. In sum, Israel is in a trap and we have the key. Let's not forget that, or lose the key. Let's meet, discuss things, and get on the same page. We need to speak in one voice. We need to say "Open Sesame" for the door to open. But don't open the door before you name the price and cash it in. We need to stand our ground and keep what is ours. Look around you. Everyone is in a trap. Everyone is going through hard times, which goes for us as well. We're no exception to the rule. The only thing is that we have precious cards in our pockets and don't seem to know how to use them well. The US has overwhelming power, and yet it walked into a mess and put itself at the mercy of the Iraqi resistance and Iran. Unfortunately, the US president is more of a Nero than a Metternich. He has more in common with the emperor who torched Rome than with the politician who brought 100 years of peace to Europe. As for Israel, here is a country that believes that force is the only way of conducting politics, and is hurting as a result. Here is a country that finds itself, 50 years or more after its creation, clueless as to where its borders should be, unable to stand on solid ground. Israel has poisoned the land with hatred and is wondering why nothing grows anymore. We, the Arabs, know we're weak. And yet there is strength in weakness, just as there is weakness in strength. We have precious keys in our hands, and we need great leaders to use them. We need peace just as others do. We need a new Middle East that is of our own making, not the making of others. We know our region better than anyone else. And we know how the relations among our neighbours should be. They may flex their muscles, but the real power is ours. We have a lot going on for us. We want peace, and we can get it. Let's prepare well for the conference. Let's set our objectives and give each of us something to do. We need to focus on preliminary meetings. We need to know what we're willing to give and what we want in return. We have to have side-meetings: Arab- Arab, Palestinian-Palestinian, Arab- Israeli, Arab-Iranian, Arab-American, etc. Those side-meetings are very important, for this is where the real deals are made. Big conferences are too clumsy. We need those small meetings to agree on the details and fine-tune the outcome. Politics is neither black nor white. It's all grey, and we have to find the right hue. The conflict will go on until a breakthrough is found: fight-fight, then talk- talk. Some people would say that nothing good could come out of such conferences. Maybe they are right. But keeping engaged is always preferable to keeping a distance. There is no harm in trying. And if things don't work out, we can always walk away and tell the world what we really think of the US president and of Israel. We're not going to give up our rights. We can be just as obstinate as everyone else. * The writer is former defence minister and chief of General Intelligence.
