Europe - Missing link

Published on February 18 in EU Observer and Common Ground News

FLORIDA - The latest American Middle East peace initiative has been launched in the absence of change in the attitudes of the protagonists or in the political landscape. Is America gambling with a new round of dead-end diplomacy by packaging old wine in new bottles?

The United States urgently needs Europe if it wants to break the deadlocked peace negotiations and Europe needs to take additional responsibility for resolving the conflict. Indeed, Israel may also need to reassess Europe’s relevance for its future.

The problem is that the White House has been working with the wrong assumption. The current deadlock does not stem from a dispute over the order of topics to negotiate, for example the place of a settlement freeze in relation to other controversial subjects. Rather, it lies in the predisposition of the stakeholders in the conflict: America has too-close a relationship to Israel to be able to twist its partner’s arm to take a risk for peace. Israel is too comfortable with the occupation and the Palestinians are divided. Moreover, Arab rulers do not convey credibility.

Strong international pressure is needed to break the deadlock. But Washington alone is losing political muscle. Close coordination between the United States and Europe could both strengthen the power of mediation and provide international security to enforce a peace agreement.

To better understand Europe's credentials for peace promotion, consider some historical facts: Europe played a major role in the formation of the state of Israel. The British government authorized the “Homeland for the Jews”. The apocalyptic tragedy of the Holocaust, a central factor that in the promotion of a Jewish state, was a Nazi German undertaking. Indeed, Jews who fled from Europe formed an essential backbone of the early state of Israel. And the first peace mission to the region after the 1967 occupation was undertaken by a European - Gunnar Jarring, the Swedish envoy to the United Nations.

Over the years, Europe’s role as a mediator receded, giving way to an expanding US role in the region. But in more recent decades, European states have achieved excellence in policing peace in many other places: in the Middle East, the Balkans, West Africa and elsewhere. Given the opportunity, Europe could provide the Israelis and Palestinians with the necessary international security that is crucial for enforcing a two-state solution.

This international security is necessary, as most Palestinians strongly feel that a future Palestine would require a national army (albeit, possibly a symbolic one). Palestinian skies and borders must be free. But Israel considers an armed, independent Palestinian state, including armed movements such as Hamas within it, a threat to its current and future security.

Stationing international forces of peace on the borders of Israel and an envisioned Palestine state, backed by Europe would simultaneously give Palestinians the independence they need and Israel the security it yearns for.

Despite its limitations, a peace-keeping model is already on the ground in the region in the shape of UNIFIL, the UN force in Southern Lebanon, which largely consists of and has been led by European states. This force could be modified, strengthened and broadened to cover the West Bank, Gaza, and possibly the Syrian Golan borders. Currently, the EU itself has a policing force, EUBAM, along the border with Egypt, and despite its observer status, it could further contribute through an expansion to the 1967 borders. Indeed, Palestinians are more likely to be tolerant of a European force, bearing in mind Europe’s perceived balance in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Europe, or rather, the EU can further contribute to a future agreement by offering, as an incentive to Israel and future Palestine, a “special status”, similar to the EU’s recent offer to Morocco. Also, Europe is urging the two factions of Cyprus to make peace in order to qualify as a united country for EU membership. Why not link the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict to the prospects of securing Israel and establishing a viable Palestinian state within a protective, suitable regional framework? If Cyprus is a candidate for the EU why not Israel and Palestine?

The long-term future of Israel could depend more on Europe than on the United States.

Hopefully, one day, should Israel decide to withdraw from the 1967 territories, it might discover that Europe could be its bridge to the Arab world

Breathing Life into the Moribund Peace Process

February 14, 2010

Palm Beach Gardens

Peace prospects in the Middle East are bleak. Deeply troubling is Israel’s gradual transformation in attitude toward the occupation of Palestinian territories seized after the 1967 war. The incremental change has been from discomfort of being an occupier to perfect ease of being the legitimate proprietor of territory that had been allegedly occupied by Jordan during the 1948 to 1967 period. The attitude change is partly a defense mechanism to cope with sharp national guilt and partly a public relations ploy to deal with Israel’s international image as a colonial state.

Equally troubling is the fratricide among Palestinian leaders and their inability to get their act together in the face of a defiant occupier.

Few observe a stark new reality: In 1948, the Arabs did not want peace but Israel did; Israel received a generous portion of partitioned Palestine. Arabs then felt that the Jewish minority in Palestine did not merit statehood. Now, the pendulum has swung: It is the Arabs who want peace, not Israel. Israel’s sense of entitlement has grown with its dramatically enhanced military and financial power.

The way Palestinians resist the occupation offers Israel on a silver plate additional excuses to continue the oppression and deepen its impact. As Palestinian factions battle one another, split into a Gaza political entity and a West Bank entity, advocate Ghandi-style resistance in one corner and military jihad in another, delegate national leaders of fading credibility, offer contradictory plans for national elections, fail to acknowledge unanimously that Israel has the right to exist, seek allies of opposed ideology, the Palestinians unwittingly serve the occupation and extend its life.

Things will have to change drastically, if peace is to be realized.

For its own good, Israel’s arm needs to be twisted. Israel should not be free to ignore international law, which prohibits the occupier from annexing any occupied land. The Jewish state receives maximal support from Washington with minimal strings attached. The organized American Jewish community, as well as the Israeli lobby, manages to stop Congress and the White House from holding Tel-Aviv accountable under international law. The world Jewish community ought to recognize that the occupation harms the future of Israel. For this selfish reason alone, Washington ought to apply strong pressure on Israel to move towards peace.

In Israel, the current far right regime is popular because the national mood has shifted to the right. Regimes may change in Israel as a result of failed military operations, external pressure from the world community, severe economic disruption, a dramatic deterioration in national security or serious changes in Palestinian resistance. A strong Palestinian shift to non-violence in resistance would undermine the raison d’etre of the current Netanyahu regime. It is difficult to predict when a new peace-friendly Israeli regime would assume leadership. Of all the factors which Palestinians can control, national unity and peaceful resistance stand out.

Left out of the peace process, Syria is the big spoiler. Bringing in Syria to the peace process would enhance the peace prospects immensely. Syria’s signing of peace with Israel, in exchange for the occupied Golan Heights, would open the floodgates of cooperation by the entire Arab world. Lebanon and Hezbollah’s issues are tied to the Syrian claims. A significant improvement on the Palestinian track would activate the Syrian track, and vice versa.

Iran is relevant to changing the regional dynamics of war. Currently, Iran is a major distraction from peace. A favorable regime change in Tehran would facilitate honest dialogue with the West. Israel and the US must morally support the Iranian opposition to change the regime. However, any US or Israeli military intervention in Iran would certainly backfire. Iran is the country that is most likely to experience dramatic change in the Middle East in the near future. If Iran becomes secure politically and economically, its military support of Hamas and Hezbollah may transform to human empowerment. Would improved Israeli-Iranian relations generate peace dividends for Palestine, Syria and Lebanon? Hopefully, but not necessarily.

Europe is needed for pushing peace. Since Europe played a significant role in the creation of Israel it should play a significant role in positioning Israel in a safe regional neighborhood. Europe can provide border security between Israel and a future Palestinian state. Since Israel objects to the formation of an armed Palestinian state on its borders, the presence of NATO forces for peace keeping is vital. The European community could open for Israel and a future Palestinian state candidacy for joining the EU.

Breathing life into the peace process requires dramatic change on several fronts inside Israel, in the region and in the US. One single positive change might lead to the unraveling of the existing deadlock. This change may first happen within the Israeli side or the Palestinian side. Palestinians should never underestimate their ability to undermine the occupation by waging a relentless campaign of peaceful resistance against the occupation. Once Arabs unanimously blanket Israel with peace, the occupation days would be numbered.

Control of terrorism is most effective at the grassroots

Palm Beach Gardens

The Christmas day terrorist has shaken the confidence of the public in airline safety and aroused worldwide attention.

As of January 4, air passengers originating from or passing through terror-suspect countries will be subjected to special measures of security checks. The new security rules will cause anger in the Muslim world. Of the listed 14 terror suspect countries 13 are Muslim majority societies.

Was the security failure in passenger screening or in the lack of connection between the West and the Muslim community, where the terrorist finds shelter? There are limitless questions to ask in the search for a better level of preparedness against terrorism.

There is a relevant silver lining in the story. The role the family played in this scary near-miss airline episode illustrates the importance of the local community’s early response to nascent terrorist threats.

Months before the attack, the father of the terrorist spotted danger in his son’s politics and reported his covert activities to the US embassy in Nigeria. Terrorists enjoy anonymity; blending-in with the crowd means survival. The father broke the local community norms by treating his son for what he is, a terrorist.

The family of the terrorist is against terror and in solidarity for peace with the rest of the world. As we think of new solutions against terrorism let us not unwittingly discourage the local Muslim community in being a partner in the search for peace.

In an imperfect world, Americans seem to demand perfect immunity from terrorist attacks.

Is this realistic?

First, terrorism can not be completely or unilaterally eradicated. Terrorism thrives in a political vacuum and in failed states, where America is often viewed as a villain. There will always be an ample supply of terrorists as long as widespread autocracy and obscene inequality characterize the developing world, and as long as the “third world” is two-thirds of the world population.

Acts of terrorism should be processed with improved technology, better international coordination, patience, understanding of human behavior, correct reading of local sentiments, support of human empowerment, and wise foreign policies.

The second reality is that America can not afford to alienate the silent majority in the Muslim world. Today, Americans constitute about five percent of the world’s population, whereas Muslims are about 20 percent. In the coming decades, demography, among other things, will increasingly remind the West that there is no better way to deal with Islam than to be culturally extra-sensitive and developmentally empowering.

Talk of profiling of Muslims in airports is in the mainstream now. Pseudo scientific arguments associate Islam with terror. Even liberals indulge in overgeneralization.

Terrorism analysts ignore the relevance of the misguided war in Iraq, the surging war in Afghanistan, the overstretched foreign military presence, Palestine, fading peace, and mounting inter-religious hatred. The emphasis in analysis is shifting from the socio-political to the technical, from the complex to the simple, and from the relative to the absolute.

The third reality is that engaging Islam on the battlefield is the problem, not the solution. The US cannot reform political regimes, but it is in a position to engage Muslims with jobs, industrial building, cultural exchange, education, and interfaith dialogue.

The best line of defense against the terrorist is alienating him from his own people. To alienate the terrorist from his community, America must refocus engagement with the Muslim world through human investment abroad.

There are many ways in which security could be technically, socially and organizationally improved without creating a battle of wills between Muslims and America.

Panic over the near-miss, profiling Muslims, and the media’s repetitive replay of terror is a symphony of great music to the ears of the terrorist and another step away from the silent Muslim majority.

There are no short-term fixes to terrorism. There is no zero risk in a crowded and flat world. In the collective combat of terrorism, the Muslim street is our first line of defense.