Middle East Crisis: Where
To Now?
By: General Michel Aoun
(Translated by: Elias
Bejjani)
At the start of the Madrid Israeli-Arabic negotiations, the view towards the Palestinian
cause changed and the Arabic-Israeli conflict shifted into a new phase. Arabs in Madrid
accepted dual negotiations with Israel. For its part, Israel accepted the peace for land
principle. Accordingly, Palestinian resistance dropped its militant struggle against the
Jewish State.
With this new progress in
Arab-Israeli relations, another progression took place, but in the opposite direction for
the negotiation track. The Muslim fundamentalists that originally rejected the existence
of Israel also rejected the negotiation process with it. Muslim fundamentalism extended
and solidified its presence through regimes supporting this rejection strategy, and
started new revolutions against those regimes in the area negotiating with Israel.
After the Palestinian resistance
gave up their militant struggle against Israel, Muslim Fundamentalism took over their role
and built on it. The Arabic-Israeli confrontation accordingly shifted to an
Islamic-Israeli one and became more comprehensive and more extensive. With this exchange
of roles, resistance against Israel became a part of al-Jihad (holy war). Worth
mentioning here is the extreme difficulty in any control over the multiple decision-making
process sources of al-Jihad.
Due to Muslim fundamentalist
resistance operations in Jerusalem, and due to the fear of many Israelis to engage
effectively in the peace process with the Arabs, the Likud opposition party won the last
election, and replaced the labor party in office. With the Likud in office, issues became
very rigid and inflexible. Negotiations stopped and accords and agreements collapsed,
except in the domain of meaningless rhetoric dialogues.
While Israelis are waiting under
pressure for peace to prevail, the whole situation remains vulnerable to all kinds of
surprises due to the attrition war in South Lebanon, the unstable Israeli security
measures in regards to fear of internal bombings, and to external political pressures.
The basic problem behind the
unsuccessful progress in peace negotiations lies in the ignorance of all parties involved
to the meaning of peace, especially those who are sponsoring the whole peace process. All
parties are dealing in a naive and superficial manner with a deep-rooted conflict that
goes beyond documented history.
How can one escape this trap? Is the solution to create a diversion by waging a preventative war? Or by fleeing the Islamic wave and abandoning Israel's traditional tactics? Or by just waiting, although waiting seems to be impossible and unacceptable in Israel? There is a high price to be paid for each of the above options, but the question is ... who will pay?
5/12/1997
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