Peace seems a distant dream
The question today is not of how much land was lost but how peace can be attained
With the marking of 40 years of Arab defeat by Israel in the June 1967 war, the question today is not of how much land Arabs have lost but more so of how and when peace can be attained. The Arab-Israeli conflict remains unresolved while peace seems impossible to achieve.
The outcome of the 1967 war was devastating for the Arab world as East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai were all turned into occupied lands.
The Arabs eventually came to the realisation that the only means of recovering their lands - or at least the greater part of them - is through peace negotiations.
These negotiations hence intensified during the 1990s with the Arab Peace Initiative being proposed in 2003. Arabs have finally come to accept the two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But today, after endless talks, negotiations and discussions that have taken place for over two decades, Israel remains reluctant to accept a peace agreement with the Arabs.
As such, Palestinians are bearing most of the suffering as Israel continues its belligerent policies as an occupying force. For Israel, a Palestinian statehood is never to be realised.
Hence, the recent invitation by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for a meeting with the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt to talk over the Arab peace initiative is questionable.
Israel has already expressed its disagreement on some of the points. It has also bluntly rejected a full withdrawal from the lands it has occupied in the 1967 war and refused to address the main issues such as the right of return.
If this is Israel's stance with regard to reaching peace with the Arab world, isn't the quest for peace an endeavour that is being pursued in vain?
