For decades the Palestine problem has been on the boil. With the right initiative by the US president Barack Obama one is getting back the hope to see a solution to the burning problem.
Seema Sirohi writes in The Times of India (18 June 2009)
US president Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world was an opening to begin afresh but Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
response was laden with old conditions and negations. Obama embraced the idea of Palestine as a just cause, but Netanyahu envisions a defanged, demilitarised and demoralised state dotted with Israeli settlements. Obama thinks continued Israeli settlements are unacceptable, but Netanyahu wants expansion and recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state" to prevent future attempts by Palestinian refugees to return home in large numbers.
The two visions are painfully at odds with each other but that is welcome news. For too long US policy has overwhelmingly been in sync with Israel's, eased by a myriad winks and nods. Consider Netanyahu's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who cheerily declared on assuming office that the Obama administration can't launch new peace initiatives without Israel's permission. "Believe me, America accepts all our decisions," said the perky minister. He has been quiet lately.
Six months into office, Obama has shocked Israel repeatedly and tried to reposition the US as a more honest broker. He came out quickly in favour of a two-state solution, gave his first TV interview to an Arab channel, invited the king of Jordan as his first Middle East state guest and his first visit to the region began in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, not Israel. He is willing to talk to Iran, despite Israel's opposition. The pattern is clear. He seems determined to change the parameters of US policy, which for decades has had an overload of Israeli concerns and fears. He wants to establish a real dialogue with the Arabs and not just with their dictatorial leaders-for-life. And for that Obama has chosen to try to heal the oldest wound.
No single cause breeds more terrorism and anger than the dispossession and humiliation of the Palestinians. It fuels mullahs in their mosques and propels factories of fanatics. Add to it the long list of short-sighted policies funding a fundamentalist Mujahideen war in Afghanistan and then dropping the puffed-up Islamists like yesterday's fashion, a misguided war against Iraq, continued squeezing of Iran and Syria, and most recently saying little against Israel's brutal 22-day pounding of Gaza and you are bobbing in an angry well. Israel has its own list of concerns, living as it does amid hostility and threat of terrorist attacks.
But Obama has calculated he can afford to annoy Israel a bit. Netanyahu's right-wing coalition has made quick adjustments in the face of new and sustained pressure from Washington. From a firm "No" to a two-state solution, the prime minister has moved to a "may be" in less than three months. That is lightning speed given the glacial pace of progress in the Middle East where many a peace process has died of intransigence, insincerity or plain old exhaustion. But Palestinian leaders are not exempt. They too have to rise to the occasion, control their rockets, and present a united front, before they can come to the table.
True, Washington has huge levers in the region, especially in Israel, which receives $3 billion annually in aid from US taxpayers besides generous donations from the many American Jewish organisations. But only once has a US president dared to use those levers George Bush senior withheld loan guarantees to force-freeze Jewish settlements. He was ultimately successful in pushing Israel to participate in the 1991 Madrid peace talks but he lost his own re-election, partly because of the immense power of the pro-Israeli lobby.
Obama has chosen the same issue settlements to change the dynamics because it has become a litmus test for the Palestinians, who helplessly watch their future state shrink. Since the 1967 Six Day War when Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza, religious Jews have built mini towns in occupied lands with the encouragement of successive governments. They are illegal under international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention (article 49), which prohibits demographic changes by the occupying power. The word 'settlement' might conjure a frontier post with few facilities but these are concrete, sprawling modern communities complete with shopping malls and schools.
Today, more than 280,000 people live in 121 settlements, occupying a total of 35 per cent of the West Bank through an elaborate system of jurisdiction, security rings, separate roads and industrial hubs. Palestinians are barred from entering or using the special road system. Another 1,90,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem, the envisioned capital of a future Palestine. Then there are settler outposts of small mobile homes usually within shooting distance of an existing settlement. Netanyahu said he will not freeze existing settlements but will remove the outposts, which are illegal even under Israeli law.
The gun-toting, volatile settlers are a bargaining chip for Israel politicians who promote settlements later claim that forcible removal would cause civil strife and destabilise the government. But Obama doesn't need to buy the argument because a freeze on settlements has the support of nearly every group, including Israelis and American Jews. In the past, Israel has always been strong enough to resist a two-state solution. But with the US president shifting the balance, there is a fighting chance for peace.
If the Isreali Prime Minister exhibits maturity this decades old problem can be solved and peace be bestowed in the region
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