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

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.