At odds on Jerusalem

Although it is highly unlikely that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak will reach an agreement on the question of Jerusalem at their faltering Camp David summit, it is nevertheless expected that the summit will produce concrete progress that could quicken the peace process in the Middle East.

Unlike the Camp David summit in 1978, which resulted in ending the animosity between Egypt and Israel, the present summit between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at the U.S. presidential retreat in Maryland, has been very tough and almost collapsed. Thanks to President Bill Clinton's insistence, the two disputing sides continued the summit, now entering its 14th day.

Even before the meeting started on July 11, the Israelis and the Palestinians had demonstrated their intransigent stances on the question of Jerusalem. Israel claims that the Holy City is its capital and an integral part of the Jewish state while the Palestinians say that East Jerusalem will be their future capital when Arafat declares an independent Palestinian state later this year.

Worse still, while Arafat and Barak are working hard to iron out their differences, back in their homelands their peoples castigate them for attending the Camp David summit and warn them not to compromise on Jerusalem.

Palestinian diehards said last week that they would continue the armed struggle against their Zionist enemy, even if a peace deal is sealed at the summit, until such time as East Jerusalem is made the capital of the Palestinian state.

Tens of thousands of Israeli right-wing opponents of Barak's coalition government, meanwhile, staged a protest in Tel Aviv against the summit. The protesters argued that Barak has no mandate to make a peace deal with Arafat, after the prime minister lost his parliamentary majority following the quitting of three right-wing parties from his coalition earlier this month.

Barak, hoping to resolve the crux of the problem in the protracted negotiations with Arafat and to achieve his dream of lasting peace in the region, said late last week that he was willing to accept a U.S. proposal for joint Israeli-Palestinian sovereignty in some areas of East Jerusalem, a daring move which many believed could help speed up the peace process.

The proposal for shared sovereignty of East Jerusalem, however, was rejected by the Palestinians on the grounds that they have an inalienable right to the Holy City, which was annexed by the Jewish state during the Arab-Israeli war in 1967. The Palestinian people's rejection of the proposal is understandable as the annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel has never won international recognition. Besides, they are also aware that true peace can be restored in the Middle East only after Israel implements the entire package of United Nations' resolutions stipulating the return of all Arab lands currently under Israeli occupation.

Although Israel has partly complied with these UN resolutions -- through actions such as returning Sinai to Egypt and withdrawing troops from Lebanon -- and has been reportedly planning to pull out of the Golan Heights, with the exception of certain areas it considers critical to its security, it nevertheless adamantly refuses to return Jerusalem, home to holy sites not only for Muslims and Christians but also for Jews.

Viewed from this perspective, one can predict that a comprehensive and peaceful solution to the Middle East question is still a long way away. It is difficult to imagine that the name of Camp David will again go into the history books as it did 22 years ago when a three-way U.S.-brokered summit held there was eventually able to cement friendly diplomatic ties between the Egyptian and Israeli peoples.

Still, this month's Camp David summit has recorded some progress regarding the problems of the future Palestinian state's borders, Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements and safe passage for the Palestinians who travel by land from the West Bank to Gaza.

This progress, it is expected, may well be capable of silencing the guns and reducing tensions between the peoples, thus giving the opportunity to both the Israelis and Palestinians to live and work peacefully together for a better future.