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The Road to Peace -
Vision and Courage
Ziad Asali, President of the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
In these times of great peril and
uncertainty, with talk of war in the air, with military men and
women mobilized and ready to unleash their might, with institutions
and alliances that have served the cause of peace for decades
fragmented and at cross purposes, it is hard to see through the fog
and to advocate a course of moderation when the word moderation
itself has become loaded and suspect. However, it is my intention to
do just that.
The horrendous impact of September 11 could have provided the
impetus for soul searching and the examination of issues, attitudes,
policies, and raw unfiltered emotional attachments. It could have
encouraged all of us to pull back and to draw a circle of sanity
isolating the violent and extremists on all sides. Quite to the
contrary, it has, in effect, given more credence and prominence to
fundamentalists and ideologues, people who advocate the clash of
civilizations and religions in pursuit of their own construct of
history and mythology.
These fundamentalists and ideologues whether Jews, Christians or
Muslims can best be called "clashists" for short, to rhyme with
fascists. They have been expanding their sphere of influence,
demonizing each other's civilizations, demeaning the religions and
symbols of their opponents and escalating the rhetoric of incitement
and hate. In short, the zealots, the Crusaders and the jihadis
posited themselves to speak for their religious or racial tribes
but, as it turned out, they had much more in common with each other
than they did with the rest of us.
The rest of us, unencumbered with divine certitude about the future
and open to reason and compromise, have found it harder to have a
public voice and space. It is our task to reclaim both. The new
image of Islam-violent, uncompromising, and hostile-has been
reinforced almost irrevocably in our time by the attacks of
September 11 and the stream of images and legends about al Qaeda
since. Search for the roots of violence has been sought in Islamic
texts with metaphysics serving as a historical source to explain
events of the day. The only general comment I am willing to make is
that, since inception, Islam has been used as a legitimizing force
for each and every state that has ruled the Muslim World-from India
to Morocco and even Andalusia-until the dawn of the twentieth
century when other, more ethnic and secular forms of claims to
statehood emerged.
The stifling of the opposition and the absence of any margin of
political discourse imposed by unpopular and corrupt oligarchies
during the past few decades have allowed for the emergence of
political Islam. This vehicle of opposition had the historic
legitimacy, and the physical outlets in mosques and schools, to
challenge a failed political, economic, cultural and moral order.
The secular, cosmopolitan, and progressive currents of the
mid-twentieth century have become a spent force of rhetoric and
impotence by the end of it. Wild atavistic yearnings to rebuild past
glory clashed with the unbearable realities of the present. The
outcome was that bizarre militant undertakings committed in the name
of Islam have defamed the religion as they defined it in the minds
of so many people. The calumnies heaped on Islam, Arabs, and Muslims
at the present mostly deliberately and by people who know better,
have to be refuted, endured, and overcome, but that is a monumental
task that I will simply mention as I set it aside.
Serious voices of self-criticism have been raised, most recently by
a distinguished group of Arab scholars, working under the auspices
of the United Nations, in a report on Human Development in the Arab
World. In this report three deficits were clearly identified:
deficit of freedom, of women development, and of education and fund
of knowledge. It is making an impact across the Arab World. Blaming
"the other," regardless of the merits of the case, is not acceptable
any longer as the sole explanation for the woes that beset the Arab
World. Genuine homegrown problems have to be acknowledged and dealt
with if the future is to bring a better promise than the present. A
significant and thoughtful segment of the Arab people understands
the overarching need to improve governance from within irrespective
of relations with the West and Israel.
The Arab Islamic World and the Christian Western World have not come
into conflict in our time solely over the Palestinian issue. I do
not happen to think that this issue played a major pat in the
September 11 terrorist attack. However, I believe that dealing with
Palestine, which evokes so much passion and symbolism, can and
should provide the way out of the present quagmire, as it opens
vistas for a peaceful century.
The Palestinian problem is an abscess that has remained undrained by
the necessary surgeon for too long. It continues to weaken the body
politic, not just of the Arabs and Israelis, nor the Islamic world,
but that of the world, but that of the world at large. It casts its
shadow across the globe with promises of dark and sinister days
ahead. It as served, and been used by the "clashists" as the
ultimate symbol where emotions are at their most raw and where
passion can too readily override reason. It has become the new last
refuge of the scoundrels.
The most troubling aspect of the Palestine / Israel conflict is that
the outline of the historic compromise seems to be evident for all
to see, but the solution is no closer to realization now than it has
ever been. The contours of this compromise solution are:
1. Palestine alongside Israel, with borders defined by
United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338.
2. Shared Jerusalem that fulfills the political aspirations
of two peoples and the three monotheistic religions.
3. A fair and lasting solution of the refugee problems that
is sensitive to justice and international law.
4. An end to occupation and settlements.
5. Peace with the Arab World based on exchange of land for
peace and open borders for all.
6. A Marshal plan to rebuild Palestine and peace.
This vision of a lasting peace has the
support of majority of people all over the world. It has received
public support in one form or another of the United Nations, the
United States as represented by the President and Secretary of
State, the European Union, the Arab League, the Quartet, and the
majority of the Palestinian and Israeli public. However, no progress
has been made to bring about this vision of peace because the
opposing forces, clearly in the minority, have had enough passion
and clout to frustrate the will of the majority.
The great fear for the Palestinians is to be uprooted and end up
without a state; the great fear for the Israelis is to be destroyed,
uprooted, and to end up without a state. There are people on both
sides who feed these fears through words and deeds and we need to
see to it that they do not speak for us. We, on the other hand, must
agree that occupation cannot stand and protestations about security
cannot e used as a cover for annexing and expropriating Palestinian
lands. We also must agree that suicide bombings, and any violence
against civilians is abhorrent, intolerable, and must end forthwith.
We collectively, honorable and finally should bring the will of the
international community to bear to provide workable and enforceable
remedies based of a two-state solution as outlined above.
The "clashist," and other more nuanced operatives who are endowed
with more confidence than sense, have been blocking the two- state
solution with guile, ingenuity and brute force. In doing so they are
blocking the only chance of peace in our time. To endorse a
one-state option now is either to condone occupation or to advocate
apartheid or to lay the groundwork for ethnic cleansing. The
possibility that Muhammad and Shlomo can, at this time, live
peacefully side by side as equals, though laudable, is a fantasy.
The advocates of a single state do not seem to be mindful of the
fact that it dismisses the nostalgic centuries-old vision of the
Jews to live in a state if their own. This realized vision would not
be abandoned in negotiations. In addition, these advocates seem not
to be aware that this option relieves the pressure and public
sanction against settlement building and expansion. The Palestinians
are no less entitled to a state of their own than the Israelis. It
is that simple.
To understand then meaning of the Palestinian problem to the
Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims one has only to consider the
feeling of the Jews about the Holocaust visited upon them by Europe;
a mixture of vulnerability, shame, and outrage, a sense of
irretrievable loss, a testimony to communal and individual weakness
and a sense of violation and betrayal by humanity. This is the stuff
that led both peoples to want to have a space of their own without
masters or slaves, a place of their very own. We cannot redress the
grievances and injustices of history nor can we achieve
unadulterated justice for all, but we can answer the most basic
fears of these two peoples as we bring about a vision of a more just
future with prospects of a life-indeed, a better life-for
generations to come.
Justice for the Palestinians, as defined by a two state solution,
has so deeply permeated the psyche of the Arab people that surveys
showed a this issue has been cited by individuals surveyed as the
most significant personal issues in their lives. It has hampered the
latitude of maneuverability of Arab governments and restricted the
parameters of public discourse to make it impossible for anyone to
defy the consensus and retain their viability in the public arena.
Passions of a humiliated Arab people, beset by economic and cultural
degradation, have focused on the Palestinian issue to the exclusion
of other more immediate issues in their lives. This happened at a
time when bilateral relations between the United States and
individual Arab states have been distorted by a secondary
relationship. The United States views its relationship to each of
these states through the prism of their individual stances of
Israel.
Peace, on terms that can be acceptable to their people, has become a
vital need for the floundering Arab regimes as well. The Israeli
public, on the other hand, so mired in fear and insecurity that it
has yielded to illusory promises of military victory, hopes to erase
those fears through brute force by electing Mr. Sharon. This is a
mirage of security achieved by an imaginary eradication of the
adversary. As a land grab seems within reach, it has motivated some
extremist to act while the voices of peace grow increasingly faint
and dispirited. It is tragic that the present mix of leadership and
theatrics, on both sides, will only lead to more death and
destruction before more sane voices prevail and sign the inevitable
historic compromise.
Not much good can be said about the decision makers for the
Palestinians, the Israelis, the Arabs, or the Americans about this
conflict in the past few decades. There is no military solution to
this political conflict. The use of F16s, tanks, bulldozers, and the
relentless confiscation of land and the building of settlements are
measures that appease the Jewish "clashists," but they threaten the
core of the Palestinian psyche and provide a steady stream of
would-be suicide bombers. The Palestinian "clashists" use
indiscriminate violence to create panic and fear and to exact
vengeance from Israel. Their violent tactics have hardly softened
the attitude of the Israeli public. On the contrary, a right wing
shift has ultimately played into the hands of the Israeli "clashists"
and Likudnicks who have escalated their policy of the iron fist and
land expropriation.
The ultimate suspicions of the Palestinians is that Israel plans to
steal the land fro underneath their feet, and that it will use all
means to block their historic quest for a state, in spite of their
tenacious will and unending sacrifices. After all these decades of
struggle for impendence the Palestinians will simply never concede
defeat. The Israelis see their security threatened by all things
Palestinian, real or imagined, and have at the present let brute
force be their substitute for a strategy.
The daily quota of murdered Palestinians and the spasmodic and
recurrent mass murders of Israelis by suicide bombers are all
measures that inflict pain, panic and lust for vengeance but move us
not one inch closer toward a solution. Reform of the Palestinian
governance, no matter how badly needed, will bring no peace in the
presence of occupation. The removal of Mr. Arafat and his
incompetent entourage, if and when it happens, has to be a
reflection of the free will of the Palestinian people, but that too
will not advance the cause of peace if the occupation does not come
to an end.
The Israelis and Palestinians are too deeply hurt to work out a
solution. They United States, anguished and angered by September 11
attacks, and publicly frustrated by the incompetence of the
Palestinian leadership, yielded to the temptation to blur the
distinction between the commitment to Israel and the commitment to
Israel's conquest. The U.S. seems to give the impression that it
views the situation in Palestine as part of the global war on terror
by granting a free hand to the Israeli government to wreak havoc on
the lives and livelihood of all Palestinians. This could not have
happened at a worse time, when the living rooms across the Arab an
Muslim world flashed the images on Al- Jazzeera of brutality,
demolition, defiance and humiliation. American arms and political
support could never have served the Islamic or the Israeli clashists
better. It is the United States nevertheless that has what it takes
to see to it that abused people refrain from carrying out their
deadly games.
The President and Secretary of State have yet to implement their
commendable and publicly stated outline of the endgame for peace. It
is hard to see how that vision can be implemented without the use of
external forces, employed on an interim basis, to guarantee security
for Israel and Palestine. This can be done either by the United
Nations or any other body sanctioned and supervised by the United
States. Such a temporary measure will halt the pain and humiliation
of the occupation and military oppression, as it puts an end to
suicide bombing and other acts of violence that engender fear and
violence. This measure will create the circumstances needed for
strategic steps for a lasting peace to be undertaken. It will suck
the oxygen from the air of all those conspiracy theory "clashists"
who thrive on a protracted and insoluble conflict.
A constitutional and democratic state of Palestine, alongside a
secure Israel, is the ultimate weapon against the terror of zealots
of all creeds. It can be the keystone for constitutional democracies
all over the region. The United States stands in a class of its own
a she one power that can nudge the parties to bring this project to
fruition. It takes courage, as well as vision, to do that. Electoral
politics and other political considerations can be far outweighed by
the benefits of peace signed, sealed and delivered. The Arab League,
which represents 22 Arab states, headed the call of the venerated
Prince Abdulla of Saudi Arabia and committed itself to a
comprehensive peace with Israel based on the land for peace formula.
Let us use the awesome tools of persuasion and clout available to
the only Super Power in the world to create the atmospherics and
mechanisms in Palestine and Israel to bring to reality the universal
vision of peace. To fail to do so is political malpractice. To shy
away from trying is moral cowardice.
Advocacy Days ~ February 23-26, 2003
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