The peace process in the Middle East has often been maligned and ridiculed. It has been accused of being at the end of the day more about process and less about peace. It was said that the only thing the peace process succeeded in achieving was that it made it possible for the occupier to confiscate the land of the Palestinian people ‘piece’ by ‘piece’.
I was among its critics; and continue to be. I felt that it was largely driven by platitudes such as ‘confidence-building measures’ which, despite its colossal failure to achieve anything of substance, seems to have secured for itself a permanent place in the peace process. Significantly, the peace process was based not on the universally recognised provisions of international law, but on the unfortunate reality of international power relations.
This explains why the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is able to defy the international community, including the US, his principal benefactor, on the question of colony construction in the Occupied Territories. Declared illegal by the International Court of Justice and illegitimate by the United States, the colonies are inarguably an obstacle to peace. They breach the roadmap — the very foundations of the peace process and prejudge the outcome of the negotiations. If the Palestinians protest and walk out of the negotiations, nothing changes, and by the time the Palestinians come back to the negotiating table, thousands more colonies would have been built. It is as if confident of their power to impose their will, Israeli leaders have acted as if they were above the law. Netanyahu is expected to announce new colony construction with supreme defiance.
Secret agreement
Consider how Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Avalon explained the Israeli position to reporters: “I think it is our right to build, certainly according to our understandings and agreements with the Americans.” But assuming that there is a secret agreement with the Americans not to stand in the way of Israel’s repeated violations of international law, a pact between two countries does not create obligations on a third country, nor does it give the two parties to the covenant any right over a third country.
In other words, it is as Moshe Ya’alon said that ‘we placed ourselves above the law and the Americans agreed’. Given their power Israel and the US can afford to behave imperially. But to build the peace process fundamentally on power may guarantee the submission of the victim only as long as the prevailing relationship of power remains the same. Justice is more likely to guarantee peace and reconciliation. Although, the principles of justice and law appear in the UN charter as guiding principles, they are absent in the power-driven peace process. Another contradiction that contaminates the balance of power as a frame of reference for the peace process is the behaviour of Washington. Claiming to be an honest broker, while decidedly and unconditionally supporting one of the parties obscures the vision and blocks the impartiality that is needed for a peace settlement based on justice and law.
Consider the security suggestion Secretary of State John Kerry recently made to the Palestinians: To place Israeli soldiers on the Palestinian side of the borders of their future state. In other words, we are asked to believe that a modern Sparta, armed to the teeth, needs protection from a weak, disarmed, and disjointed Palestinian state that could be re-occupied in hours. The question is who is the vulnerable party and who needs protection? Still, the Palestinian leadership, already accused of secretly making massive concessions, reportedly agreed to the presence of international observers on the Palestinian side of the frontiers.
Despairing with the inability of the current peace process to lead to anything resembling two states living side-by-side in peace and security, some observers suggested we finally give up on the two-state solution. University of Pennsylvania professor Ian Lustick, argues Israel should be replaced by a bi-cultural country that includes the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. But this he argues, may prove to be a bloody transition before the two peoples to settle down and learn how to live together. The Israeli people are not likely to embrace the bi-national state, which would amount, to the dismantling of the Zionist structures of the state.
The peace settlement that will emerge must be one of epic proportions — reflective of the audacity of the Zionist enterprise transforming an entire society. It must also recognise the struggle and suffering of the Palestinian people. A just and lasting peace must be one that recognises the wrongs inflicted on the Palestinian people and offer a measure of justice to bring about peace and reconciliation between two peoples willing to live together in peace and prosperity.
Dr. Adel Safty is distinguished visiting professor and special adviser to the rector at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Russia. His book, Might Over Right, is endorsed by Noam Chomsky and published in England by Garnet, 2009.
