Editorial
From
the Editor: Akhtar
Mahmud Faruqui
Dated
February 18, 2005
The Sharm el-Sheikh
Peace Initiative
Cold, cloudy
and drizzly, the Gaza Strip was shrouded in biting
cold last Tuesday. But amidst the despair of the
wintry morning were faint traces of hope. "It could
be the bad weather that withheld people here in
Gaza from celebrating, but I can say that expectations
and hopes are riding high here, and people are waiting
to see good actions on the ground," said Salem Helles,
a Palestinian student in Gaza. "We are fed up of
hearing good and then bad news over the past few
years, and it is time for real positive actions
and an end to the Israeli occupation," he added.
At about the
same time Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh
was bathed in sunlight and was the venue of what
could turn out to be a landmark Arab-Israeli summit
bringing together Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah. The meeting
and the ceasefire agreed to between Sharon and Abbas
have been described as a 'groundbreaking' event
to usher peace in the war-ravaged Middle East. Said
Dr Condaleeza Rice, US Secretary of State: "Success
is not assured, but America is resolute.
This is the
best chance for peace we are likely to see for years
to come." Tony Blair described the summit as one
"of historic importance" while a spokesman for Kofi
Annan felt the pledges "provide an opportunity for
the peace process to resume". Not everyone shared
the optimism. Newspapers in the Middle East particularly
sounded circumspect. "What Sharon obtained in Sharm
el-Sheikh yesterday is enough for him ... There
is no call for any other gifts," said Abdel Wahhab
Badrakhan, deputy editor of the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.
"Arabs jumping to reward him with normalization
should at least put him in a probation period,"
Badrakhan commented in an editorial.
Salah el-Hadja,
chief editor of the Tunisian Arabic daily Assarih,
observed: "Only Sharon was able to benefit from
the summit by appearing as a champion of peace ...
If that is the criterion of success for the summit,
one can say it succeeded. But the Palestinian cause
is still stuck." Qatar's Ash-Sharq daily felt the
summit "did not achieve much of what was expected
by the Palestinian and Arab public opinion ... as
it did not include guarantees for the implementation
and commitment" of a ceasefire.
The Daily Star
commentator Rami Khouri said: "The bottom line to
date is that everything we are witnessing - heartening
and welcomed as it is - has been tried before, by
these same people, without success." Israeli papers
appeared decidedly more optimistic. Top-selling
Yediot Aharonot ran a front-page headline declaring
"The Intifada Is Over", while its main tabloid rival
Maariv struck a more skeptical note: "Maybe This
Time". Maybe this time the hardliners on both sides
will be successfully kept on a tight leash. Maybe
this time peace efforts will be crowned with success.
Maybe this time Israel will act with expedition
and sincerity to facilitate the creation of a Palestinian
state. Maybe this time the Palestinians will "not
have fixed mindset about Israeli behavior," as hoped
by an analyst.
"After all,
there is such a clear example for them to take guidance
from Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and the latter's
returning of the occupied Sinai territory to Egypt."
A sane observation. The spirit of co-existence must
prevail in the Palestinian-Israeli parleys if peace
efforts are to crystallize, a point we had emphasized
in these columns sometime back and repeat here in
part in view of its relevance to the current situation.
"… The multi-dimensional nature of the human tragedy
enacted in the Middle East could have hardly been
more truthfully spelled out …. As the death toll
mounts and casualties multiply, there is little
to suggest that words like remorse, compunction,
empathy or fair play have any meaning in contemporary
lexicon.
The resultant
suicide-bomber acts staged by hapless Palestinians,
including hijab-sporting teen-age youthful girls,
is a cause of concern. So are the innocent Israeli
civilians gasping for precious life and helplessly
scrambling for help. It is a haunting spectacle
- on both sides of the religious divide. "Both the
Palestinians and the Israelis are experiencing a
bloodbath, though of a varying degree. In this swiftly
spiraling human catastrophe the question of paramount
importance is: Does Islam or Judaism preach violence
and should the losses experienced by the adherents
of the two Abrahamic faiths be incurred in such
a wanton fashion given the fact that both Muslims
and Jews have stakes in the region and neither one
can succeed in surviving at the expense of the other?
A spirit of mutual accommodation must prevail in
any strategy or scheme of initiatives chalked out
to bring about peace in the region. Israel, with
its marked military superiority, is better poised
to take the initiative.
It must, as
well-known peace negotiator George Mitchell observed,
realize that "a military victory is an illusion"
and the two parties should "get back to the negotiating
table." His message for the Palestinians is equally
important: the pool of suicide bombers … is not
going to achieve the Palestinian objective of an
independent state. "A glimmer of hope comes from
the majestic portals of the Vatican where the Pope
in his Easter address emphasized the paramount importance
of coexistence. The Beirut Declaration, offering
peace to Tel Aviv in exchange for a complete Israeli
withdrawal from all occupied territories, is a manifestation
of the same spirit. The US could play a pivotal
role in mustering support for such peace initiatives.
It has acted
nobly in Bosnia and Kosovo and rescued Europe in
the two world wars. It alone has the power to bring
the Israelis and the Palestinians to the negotiating
table to ensure that the two arrive at an arrangement
which ensures the well being of both. If memory
serves right, it was Charles Dickens, well-known
English novelist, who observed: "Let's conserve
a livable world. Let's contemplate existence." A
sane advise. One that both the Palestinians and
the Israelis need to heed today. Conflicts are created
and ended by human beings." - afaruqui@pakistanlink.com
