Will the Middle East peace process be buried for good?
SINGAPORE: An eye for an eye will finally end with the whole world going blind, said Mahatma Gandhi once. Nowhere is this statement truer than in Israel and the occupied territories where, in the space of just 12 days, some 90 people have died, most of them Palestinians.
What has happened, and why? Has the peace process, which seemed so promising just months ago, been buried for good? Can the conflict escalate to engulf the whole region? United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and U.S. President Bill Clinton are no doubt asking themselves these questions, for they have redoubled efforts to head off a calamity.
The possibility of the conflict escalating is not slight, for the Israeli government is said to be weighing a major strike against Lebanon and Syria, in retaliation for the capture of three Israeli soldiers by the Hizbollah, a radical Lebanese group. If that were to happen, not only might the peace process be abandoned, war could erupt.
The wonder is why the Israeli government does not seem overly worried about this possibility. Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak went so far as to issue an ultimatum to Palestine Authority President Yasser Arafat, to halt the fighting within 48 hours or face suppression by "all available means".
Why he issued this threat is beyond comprehension. Firstly, issuing an ultimatum in what is essentially a police situation makes no sense. Secondly, if Barak had made good on his threat, he would have laid the ground for what he must dread most -- another Intifada.
With emotions so raw, no Palestinian, not least Arafat, could have folded. Thirdly, it is not as though the Israeli army acted with such restraint before, that Barak needed to signal his willingness to be tougher.
As a UN Security Council resolution maintains -- a resolution which the United States pointedly did not veto -- Israel has used "excessive force", deploying tanks and helicopters against rioters, most of whom wielded stones.
What makes Barak think that even more "excessive force" would pacify a people already bent on martyrdom as the only honorable option before overwhelming might?
And finally, the demarche was self-serving, for it swept under the carpet what was obvious to the rest of the world -- namely, that the latest round of violence was instigated in large part by a visit that former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, now leader of the opposition Likud bloc, paid to Haram al Sharif or the Temple Mount, a site in Jerusalem sacred to Muslims and Jews.
At the very least, Barak ought to have coupled his tough talk with an agreement to establish a "speedy and objective inquiry", as the Security Council now demands, into why the fighting began.
Barak has now announced an extension of his ultimatum, without setting a new deadline. The one silver lining in the dark clouds is a proposed summit this week, to be hosted by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and attended by Barak and Arafat as well as Clinton.
If peace is to be restored, all sides must act in good faith. With Palestinian authority already established over wide stretches of the West Bank, Israel is not going to gain anything on the ground that it knows it must inevitably concede at the negotiating table.
Similarly, the Palestinians must realize they cannot wrestle from Israel any concession that it can only concede in a comprehensive peace settlement.
To fight for national sovereignty is sometimes a tragic necessity; to continue fighting for it when only negotiations can secure that sovereignty is tragically hopeless.
-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network