Hope springs eternal

The quest for ‘peace in the Middle East’ is a phrase the majority of us have been hearing for the better part of our lives, but as a concept it has always remained an elusive pipe dream.

Despite the international community’s efforts - sometimes half-baked, while at other times genuine - the elusive goal for the hotbed, the breeding ground for three of the world’s major religions, appears as distant today as it did in the 1950s.

Current public opinion reflects a similar sense of hopelessness, with results from this week’s I-Poll showing an 82% of voters feeling there is no chance for peace in the region.

In part, years of incomplete reporting and biased public debate have eclipsed public understanding of the underlying problems. While, thanks to the US-dominated international media, most of us can empathise with victims of the Palestinian suicide bombers, fewer know of the oppression under which Palestinians have lived since 1948, when they began losing their lands, bit by bit, to Israel.

But the Palestinians’ plight unquestionably stems from a true repression at the hands of the Israelis. The smallest evidence of which can be seen in grossly unequal pay for equal work, unequal application of laws, extreme restrictions on movement and loss of other civil rights, lack of security, and the lack of a military or other power with which to negotiate on equal terms, for starters.

Furthermore, Western governments have generally favoured Israel's interests, despite the fact that the United Nations and many governments have acknowledged Israel's occupation of lands taken in 1967 as illegal. Yet little, save the efforts of former US President Bill Clinton, has been done to rectify the travesties suffered by the Palestinians.

Palestinians have been asked to negotiate in the midst of an extreme power imbalance, with little remaining to concede. Having no lands, military, money, or other negotiating leverage, they have created what leverage they could with violent and shameful terrorist measures.

Yes, all is clear in retrospect and we now realise that Middle Eastern affairs never needed to reach today’s boiling point, had the US and others recognised the legitimacy of Palestinian concerns and insisted on more equal peace negotiations.

Of course this could still happen and hope for a solution to what is the root problem of terrorist attacks taken out against the West and Israel is still very much possible. Yes, much blood has been spilt and the slaying of friends and family on both sides of the conflict has only hardened the resolve of extremists, while also changing the will of many moderates. However, before negotiations can start in earnest, the distrust - deepening with every act of violence on each side - must cease.

If ever the futility of violent solutions and the merit of peacemaking were evident, it is so in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – to use a mild term.

Every violent assertion of either the Israeli or Palestinian right to their homelands, rights, and existence threatens the same rights of the other side.

Add religious determinism, and sometimes fanaticism, to these desperate fears of annihilation and it seems obvious that neither side will ever concede, as each increasingly adopts violence to protect its fundamental rights.

Yet violence against an enemy has powerful political appeal. Palestinian support for the militant Hamas faction has never been higher and the majority of Israelis support their government's current use of force and brutality. Although each party recognises that violence won't solve the basic conflict, neither side will concede without pressure from the outside.

This dim hope, however dismal it may appear, could materialise through this week’s mutual call from the US, the EU and the UN – with enough political and economic clout to stop most states in their tracks. However, the stubbornness of Israel is more than a mere racial slur, it’s a reality embodied today by Sharon’s unwillingness to heed, as of last Friday, the multilateral appeal.

Peace in the region does hold the potential of becoming a reality. But first America, from its integral brokering position, must emerge from its apologist role for aggressive Israeli policies and shoulder its responsibility of opposing violence of all kinds, support a restoration of Palestinian power, lands, and rights while also protecting Israel's own lands and right to exist.

The current US president George Jr falls far short, in countless respects, of his predecessor Bill Clinton. Clinton had struggled to initiate and conclude negotiations and thawed, to a certain degree, the thick ice between the sides.

Bush, until this week, had consistently turned a blind eye toward the conflict while it escalated out of control – perhaps hoping it would just go away, leaving him to his introspective political dogma, which he was forced to abandon with the events of 11 September.

But his recent demand for Israel to withdraw from occupied territories and for Palestinians to immediately cease their desperately brutal terrorist attacks offers hope that the US could once again evolve into a meaningful peace-broker.

Bush, in fact, spoke well this week in saying that "conflict is not inevitable, and distrust need not be permanent," while noting, "in our lifetimes we have seen an end to conflicts that no one thought could end."

The visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powel, a soldier himself by profession, this weekend does offer a glint of hope but his brief is difficult, impossible according to 82% of our I-Poll respondents.

General Powel’s task is all the more difficult considering the present US government’s negligence and its partisanship. He faces the prospect of suicide bombings, Israel's ongoing West Bank occupation, attempts by the Lebanon-based Hizbullah’s attempts to deepen the conflict and the still unknown but undoubtedly ugly truth of Israeli atrocities within the Jenin refugee camp.

With both sides struggling to secure their statehood, by apparently any means necessary, the prospect of peace seems to be dwindling – but hope and determination to find a solution must always be at the forefront of any Mid-East discussion.