"It seems all actors of Palestinian jeremiad are locked in a series of mutual incrimination, intimidation and coercion and are treading the road without signs and are heading nowhere." However, in reality it is not so. This is the perception that Israel, through its powerful media and strong lobby abroad, has created successfully to overshadow its misdeeds and excesses against innocent, unarmed and non-combatant Palestinians including women and children.

The fact is, that with an age long bias, ideological distortions, complete distrust and utter disregard for human values, Israel is not helping in creating an atmosphere conducive for peace in the Middle East. It has, however, successfully created a make-belief among certain circles of the international community regarding the general behaviour pattern of Israelites and Palestinians, according to which they are acting like exhausted swimmers facing high current, clinging to each other to drown themselves.

Israel and the US have their own agenda to forward in the name of peace and stability in the region. For that, they need to marginalise any state, organisation or authority that can stall their moves to realise their objectives. The Middle East peace process is a by-product of that programme. Whether it is materialised or not, does not concern the chief proponents of the peace process.

After securing Israel’s borders, the US wants to settle scores with Iran so that the impact of aerial strikes on nuclear installations inside Iran, in case there is a set back to the present Iran-Europe rapprochement on the nuclear issue, is restricted to a minimum. For this Syria had to be out of Lebanon so that the next move could be made against Hezbollah which is under the influence of Iran. After pushing Syria out of Lebanon the US wants some international force having substantial US representation to move in to fill the power vacuum and to neutralise Hezbollah. Present bomb blasts, political disorder, near crippling of law and order in a country whose peace had remained on the balance for the last 15 years, provide all the ingredients for another international intervention under the US in the absence of Syrian troops in Lebanon. All the US policies in the Middle East, in the name of peace, security and stability, are Syria-Iran specific so that after neutralising them, Israel’s hegemony can be established in the region.

There have been many peace talks and agreements in the past and all have been bulldozed by Israel on flimsy pretexts. In the end, it simply refused to deal with Arafat, the very person whose peaceful intentions were recognised worldwide and who also shared the Nobel peace prize in 1994 with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. What guarantees are there now that all Mr Mahmood Abbas’s achievements and sincerity will not go to the dogs once it suits Israel? On the pretext of not being able to control extremist elements, such as Hamas, among Palestinians, he can be ditched anytime to roll in tanks on the civilian population. He can also be blamed for being not pro-active to peace and then ditched very conveniently.

Mr Abbas is expected to do the dirty job of cleaning Israeli mess in Palestinian territories. He is expected to neutralise the armed groups among Palestinians who still believe that only armed struggle can bring independence to Palestine. Israel wants schism and division among the Palestinian ranks without conceding anything that would jeopardise its grand plan. Once armed groups are neutralised, and distrust and division has been created among Palestinians, it will be very easy to marginalise their leadership.

Mr Abbas has been put in a no-win position. Hamas has already gained a lot of political capital and is fast emerging as a substitute political force. This shift of Hamas’s standing among Palestinians from an armed resistant group to a political party is expected to bring backlash from Israel and will provide it yet another chance to back out of peace process.

On the economic front, Mr Abbas has yet another daunting task. Although, he has been promised help, the amount is small when compared with the gigantic needs of the people and the structuring of an administrative machinery from ruins. Further, the moot question is how much, and to what extent, will the Israelis allow the Palestinians to use scarce resources such as water, electricity and telecommunications for their economic development. These are the areas, which have not been dealt with seriously, and they are as combustible as other political issues highlighting the peace process.

The present arrangement has left out all the difficult issues, which have been the main cause of contentions among the warring parties. Most significantly the fate of Jerusalem, which is the point of interest to the Muslims across the globe, has been left to future negotiations.

What Abbas is promising the Palestinians, he himself is not sure to get. The road is too bumpy and the map is so hazy that it does not offer any time frame for the final settlement of the problem. There are so many ifs, dos and don’ts that in practical terms peace in the Middle East seems a Herculean task.

Compared with the Road-Map, the Camp David agreement of 1979 had granted autonomy to the whole of the West Bank and Gaza and had set a deadline of five years for the final resolution of the occupied Arab territory. Arafat had only succeeded to get not more than a just local self-government status for one fourth of the occupied territory, which Mr Abbas had inherited to ascend a mountain of troubles and frustrations.



The writer is a noted columnist and analyst presently teaching at a foreign university/Al-Tehdi university, Sirte, Libya.