No peace option

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 05/22/2007 8:11 AM | Opinion

Peace sells, but who's buying? It seems that nobody is a consistent subscriber to peace when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Over the years there has been no shortage of peace peddlers -- some altruistic, some with hidden political agendas -- offering ""breakthrough"" agreements between the Palestinian-Israeli divide. The Americans, Russians, British, Saudis, Norwegians, the UN and many others have tried.

Promises have been shattered to disappointment. Hopes and dreams have turned into festering anger and vengeance.

Politics, propaganda and ideology have blurred the roots of the problem, so much so that any resolution will require pragmatic outcomes in order to bring about peace and justice.

It takes a big commitment to pursue peace. On the road to peace, self-sacrifices are more painful in the short and medium term, than the simple glory of war.

History has proven that while Israel and Palestine have offered many peaceful leaders, there have been few followers of peace.

The great enduring sacrifice required for peace has not been paid. The down payment is too insufficient for permanent peace acquisition. Politics or the sheer lack of political will have often been the main impediments. In other instances it has been the fateful hands of an assassin that forestalls the peace initiative.

Analysts and, especially, politicians, will be quick to place blame, but when the sun sets and another body is buried who cares?

Headlines may lay fault in the Israelis for the current episode of violence in Gaza, but in actual fact those who have notions of power -- Israelis and Palestinians alike -- share equal guilt.

The web is too tangled for a singular blamable protagonist.

Fatah is responsible for failures in governance, which led to loss of trust and less secular elements rising to the Palestinian fore.

Hamas is culpable for its extremism and failure to command armed elements in its faction.

Both are to blame for failing to reach a compromise in honoring a Saudi peace initiative for a unified Palestinian government.

Israel is to blame for its persistent use of force and penchant for occupying Palestinian land.

Respective leaders of these groups and nations may command vast resources to destroy, but the prayers of history will only be reserved for those who stand as the vanguard of lasting peace.

It will most likely take the intervention of yet another outside party for the latest violence to subside. Either that, or the exhaustion of arsenal supplies.

Given the history, there can only be one foreboding conclusion: Peace will be temporary.

Without a true desire from the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to pursue peace, there can be none.

No matter how painful it is to look upon, how can we (the outside world) from afar expect to sympathize and focus our efforts on this dispute when those entangled only seek more dispute?

Until the leaders of this region take a good look at themselves, rather than throw suspecting glances at others, tranquility will remain only a word.

Violence begets violence.

Muslim or Zionists, Likud or Hamas, Palestinians or Israelis, will continue to be war-mongers for the next generation.

If they refuse to acknowledge their own errors, perhaps they would like to lay blame on the British Empire for improperly partitioning the region.

Better yet, blame it on the Moses' Israelites for the exodus, which left this Arab crescent to the Palestines.

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