'If nothing changes in Washington...'

By Hadi Jawad

On April 11, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will call on President George W. Bush at his Crawford Ranch to discuss what the White House has announced as "prospects for Middle East peace". But if ending the occupation of lands illegally held by Israel for 38 years is not on the leaders' agenda, "prospects" for Middle East peace will continue to be elusive.

Complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories may not be a panacea; other difficult issues will have to be negotiated and resolved, but without Israel's retreat to the internationally recognised borders of 1967, the "peace process" will never get anywhere.

The US deftly invokes UN resolutions selectively to further its policy aims in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein's violation of 14 Security Council resolutions was one of the reasons provided for the ill-advised invasion of Iraq. More recently, Bush invoked international law to demand Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon.

Israel has violated sores of UN resolutions, yet successive administrations in Washington, Democratic and Republican, have continued to provide it with military, diplomatic and financial cover.

Palestinians, struggling to escape the squalor of refugee camps for almost four decades, have been terrorised by blind American support for Israel and the heavy handed policies of the Israeli army.

The brutality of house demolitions, the humiliation endured by common Palestinians at ubiquitous checkpoints that keep students from schools, the sick from hospitals and workers from employment, has to cease immediately. The Israeli occupation of Palestine must end and the US must agree to withdraw support from Israel until it agrees to do so.

A frequent reason policy makers in Washington offer for unquestioned US loyalty to Israel is that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. The problem with that statement, obvious to most people of the Middle East, is that Israel is not a democracy. In a democratic state, citizens enjoy equal economic opportunities and political empowerment. Israel resembles more an apartheid state in which a group of citizens, deemed first class, exercises immense political and economic power over another group of citizens declared second class.

The path to peace in the Middle East lies through the hearts of Palestinians and Israelis. Most are exhausted by the spiral of violence that marks their lives. Most would wholeheartedly support a chance to live normal, ordinary lives. Beleaguered Palestinians yearn to breathe freely the air of a sovereign nation in which no wall imprisons them in their own cities and villages. Israelis also deserve to carry on the activities of daily living without fear of being blown to bits.

While our leaders in Washington and the editorial writers of our national newspapers have no trouble demanding accountability from Palestinian leaders, they are reticent when Israeli leaders throw obstacles on the road to peace. If nothing changes in Washington, nothing will change in the Middle East. The freeze on settlements demanded of Israel by Bush must hold!

If next weekend matters come down to a staring contest between Sharon and the president, Bush must not blink, otherwise, like previous attempts for peace in the Holy Lands, the "roadmap to peace" will lead to another dead end.

The writer is member of the board, Crawford Peace House, Crawford, TX. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

This article was published in the Monday, April 11, 2005 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.