Part 2 of 2 : How Bush could recover Muslims' support

Jusuf Wanandi, Member, Board of Trustees Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta

Indonesia's support to the Palestinians is based on the Preamble of the 1945 Constitution, which states: Whereas independence is the natural right of every nation, colonialism must be abolished in this world because it is not in conformity with humanity and justice.

Indonesia has been supporting the right of self-determination of Palestine since the early 1950s, after Indonesia's independence was completed with the recognition by the Dutch in 1949.

In the last two decades or so, there has been a revival of Islam, due, among other reasons, to the success of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Country's boycott in 1974, which brought a lot of money to the Saudis, and because of the Iranian Revolution led by Khomeini in 1977. Since then an Islamic awareness and solidarity has arisen among Muslims everywhere, including in Indonesia. With this awareness greater attention is also given to the plight of the Palestinians.

Due to globalization and the widespread penetration of the electronic media, this awareness has grown in the last decade and has brought about a self-identification and strong symbolic meaning to Muslims worldwide.

Every night in their living room they can see through CNN, Al Jazeera or the BBC how the Palestinians are being abused, discriminated against, and treated unjustly.

These all have created great despair among their youth. They identify that feeling with the plight of Muslims in general since they themselves have experienced colonization and discrimination for the last 200 years or so.

There is no greater symbol or stronger self-identification for Muslims worldwide than the plight of the Palestinians. In their view the U.S. is backing Israel to the extreme because of U.S. domestic policies and efforts to make Israel the most important U.S. strategic partner in the Middle East. They believe that because of the full backing by the U.S., Israel behaves so arrogantly and aggressively and is unwilling to reach out to the Palestinians for a compromise.

It could well be that if the Israel-Palestine conflict could be resolved in the future, the extremist-cum-terrorists among the Muslims will look for another excuse to confront the U.S., Israel and the West. But, even if that is the case, the intensity and widespread support for any other issue will never be as strong as on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and will have a more limited impact on Muslims worldwide.

It should be noted that U.S. policies are not always in favor of Israel. And in some instances, U.S. presidents such as Carter, Bush Sr., and Clinton tried very hard to put pressures on Israel to be willing to compromise.

Sometimes they did succeed to push the process for peace, especially if there are strong leaders on both sides of the conflict that are brave enough to compromise politically, such as the case of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel.

The Camp David meeting under the auspices of President Jimmy Carter has made it possible for Egypt and Israel to normalize their bilateral diplomatic relations, and resulted in the withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai, which was returned to Egypt following the agreement.

The Oslo Agreement, supported by Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat, has opened the way for an important peace-process, although the toughest parts were left unresolved and became a real hindrance for peace.

These included the problem of the final status of Jerusalem, the limitation on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and the right of return of Palestinian diaspora to their former land. Arafat never made it clear to the Palestinians about the compromises that needed to be made to find a solution with the Israelis.

The process was halted because of the demise of Yitzak Rabin by a bullet of a Jewish extremist. President Bush Sr. was instrumental to push for the peace process through the so-called Madrid Conference, that took place after the first Iraq War ended in 1992.

The third effort was made by President Clinton nearing the end of his term at the Wye River Meeting between Arafat and Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1989. Although it seemed to have nearly reached a resolution, the outstanding issues could not be overcome. President Clinton ran out of time and could not push for a final resolution.

At the Aqaba Meeting, following the failure of the Wye River, which aimed at saving whatever could be saved, both sides at the lower level of officialdom tried to come up with compromises.

These compromises were used as the basis for the Geneva Accord by private initiatives involving civil society and former officials from Israel and Palestine about one month ago.

This was a very brave initiative and in fact demonstrates the determination of the part of both peoples and societies to achieve peace and development for both the Israeli state and Palestine state to be. However, the government of Israel under Sharon is not willing to move forward, and the initiative only received lukewarm support from the Arafat camp.

President Bush Jr., of course, was the first U.S. President that proposed a Palestine independent state and together with the UN, EU and Russia had pushed for a roadmap towards a resolution of the conflict. Again, this did not go very far, because extremists on both sides sabotaged the effort.

Many Muslims thought that President Bush was not pushing for the roadmap strong enough. That message was conveyed to him by the Indonesian Muslim leaders that met with him in Bali several months ago.

The message seemed to have some impact. If President Bush can move the roadmap in cooperation with the other three sponsors, albeit step by step because it is such a complex problem, then the support for him among Muslims worldwide could be somewhat recovered.

In the meantime, Indonesians -- be they Muslims or not -- should give support to the roadmap and the Geneva accord to achieve a peaceful resolution to a conflict that is so deep seated and debilitating to all.