History Still Has Firm Grip on the Holy Land

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 30, 2003 | by Jamie Dettmer

Byline: Jamie Dettmer, INSIGHT

Cast your mind back to those jubilant days when the Berlin Wall fell and hope was in the air once again. Some argued that it was the "end of history" the end of national conflicts, the start of something different. The remarriage of the two halves of Germany was a liberating, frothy street wedding that seemed to promise the beginning of a virtuous cycle. Europe would come together and that togetherness would serve as a model as would the ending of enmity between the United States and

Russia for others not only to applaud but to emulate.

Without the confusing and inflammatory presence of the Cold War, other disputes farther afield would wither away as history ended. The world would at long last be at peace. But the past has a way of making itself felt and of returning. It overwhelms ordinary marriages, so why should we be surprised that it won't let go when it comes to nations?

In the 1990s we were shocked at the return of history and ancient grievances in the Balkans and the barbarity that was thrown up to open ancient wounds. Rwanda, Liberia, the horrific list goes on. Now we shake our heads in horror at the Middle East, where Jew and Palestinian allow history to continue to wreak vengeance and to make a mockery of the few peacemakers around.

As any therapist who is trying to achieve calm in a troubled marriage knows, conflict resolution is one of the hardest things to pull off. He said, she said. He did, she did. Tit-for-tat behavior. Trust evaporates, doubts set in and pride and selfishness are given free rein. The center gives way; the beast slouches toward Babylon. Only a Herculean effort of gentleness and humility, a complete and compassionate refocusing, can save the marriage from collapse. A real, bedrock wish for reconciliation is needed.

Viewed through that prism President George W. Bush's "road map for peace" always seemed a valiant nonstarter. Admittedly, in the Middle East there was no marriage there was never a center to start with. It isn't even a marriage of convenience, but a matter of two people, each determined to rule in one land.

Last summer when returning to the United States from the Middle East, Bush reportedly ventured on Air Force One the comment that, "Maybe history is such that now we can achieve peace." But the past has laughed back. The White House placed great hope in Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned Sept. 6, after deciding that he was losing the security struggle with his boss Yasser Arafat, as he was destined to do.

The departure of Abbas represented a grave blow to the "road-map process" and exposed one of the underlying contradictions of the Bush approach. Sidestepping Arafat in that political climate is an impossibility prime ministers

are appointed by him and can be curtailed by him. Now American hawks, who wanted months ago to endorse the hard-line Israeli idea of exiling Arafat, have been strengthened in their argument that the Palestinians will never be serious about peace while

Arafat remains in power.

But the Palestinian leader isn't the only obstacle to peace, so removing him is unlikely to be the silver bullet that some argue. Exiling Arafat would prompt a furious response by Hamas and other militant groups and strengthen them. The Palestinian Authority probably would collapse, leaving no central authority to negotiate with and returning the state of affairs in the region to that of the 1980s.

The road map has required peacemaking steps by Israel as well. As U.S.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a speech in September, "It takes two to make peace; it takes only one to prevent peace. If either of the parties turns away from its obligations under the road map, both will slide into a ditch or tumble over a cliff."

And the plain fact is that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Likud Party also have been obstacles. "Israel's counterterrorist strategy against Hamas' political leadership is pointless and counterproductive. Like many aging warriors,

Ariel Sharon is caught up in an old war; he is re-enacting his own 1970s colonial-style pacification of Gaza," said British writer Kevin Toolis. There's that suggestion of "history" again.

And the Israeli government has failed to live up to its commitments to the removal of Israeli settlements by allowing more to spring up. Some critics argue that Bush has not kept Sharon's feet to the fire on this issue. Even if he had, it is doubtful Sharon could do much. Plagued by a corruption probe into how he raised money for his 1999 campaign to win the Likud leadership, Sharon is weaker than he was a year ago and relies on militant religious parties to remain in office. They will not hear of "settlement-building" being curbed.

In short, has there really been good faith on either side? Is the wish for peace really there?

Take another conflict where there has been substantial and probably irreversible progress namely, Northern Ireland. In the end the key to progress has been the exhaustion of the participants and the clear wish of the hard men on both sides of the sectarian divide for the cup of violence to pass by their sons and daughters. There is no sense of that yet in the Holy Land.