Challenges to the peace process today.

• Author: Quainton, Anthony
• Position: Israel-Palestine border conflict - Viewpoint essay

A distinguished retired diplomat, who served as an American Ambassador on three continents, critically examines the Arab-Israeli peace process and the difficulties that stand in the way of a solution to a problem that has baffled so many for so long.--Ed.

The peace process is essentially dead. There is neither a workable process, nor is there any agreement on the nature of the peace to which a process is designed to lead. On paper there is a process: the 2003 Road Map (building on the 1993 Oslo Accords) in which President Bush set out a series of principles for the Israelis and Palestinians. In effect it was a step by step approach under which each side would take explicit confidence building measures. The Israelis would dismantle settlement outposts and freeze settlement activity. It would reduce restrictions on Palestinian movement on the West Bank. The Palestinians would bring violence to a halt and militias under control. Later stages would lead to an Israeli withdrawal, the resolution of final status issues and the creation of an independent Palestinian State. None of this has happened and both sides have systematically ignored the understandings that they made to the American Government at that time. Yet, if the rhetoric of the international community is to be believed, a peace based on two states living in peace and security side by side is achievable if only the two sides would make the necessary concessions or if they were pushed hard enough by the American Administration. I have my doubts.

Why has the process died? And are there now new prospects for peace in the aftermath of elections in Israel and the United States or must those prospects be further postponed until the Palestinians hold their own elections early in 2010? The Obama Administration seems anxious to reenergize a process and has designated former Senator, and Northern Ireland peace mediator, George Mitchell to head up that effort. The President has once again called for a settlement freeze and an end to violence. The Palestinian authority Prime Minister has called for the creation of a Palestinian State within two years. Prime Minister Netanyahu has outlined his vision for a demilitarized and truncated Palestinian State which recognizes and accepts Israel as a "Jewish" state. However his vision is far from what would appear to meet the Palestinians most basic demands. In the meantime settlement "thickening" continues apace. Peace seems as far off as ever.

The question thus remains: What would it take to achieve Peace? Or are the basic demands of the two sides fundamentally irreconcilable? When dealing with peace in this region, it is always well to look to the scriptures for the answer. There are two texts that we should keep in the back of our minds: Genesis 15:18 and Exodus 23:31. The first is the more familiar for it contains God's promise to Abraham. In that verse: "The Lord made a Covenant with Abram saying, unto thy seed have I given this land from the River of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." Cairo to Baghdad! But since Jews, Christians and Muslims all claim in some fashion to be descendents of Abraham, to whom in fact does this land belong? The Exodus text is geographically and demographically more explicit. Speaking to Moses after he has received the ten commandments and other laws, the Lord promises Moses: "I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you." So much for the non-Jewish tribes living in the region! In today's world we are inclined to dismiss these promises, like much else in the Mosaic Law, as outdated or irrelevant. But the truth is that these texts underlie the extraordinary emotional attachment which many in the State of Israel, including its Prime Minister, have for the land west of the Jordan, or what Israelis prefer to call Judea and Samaria. To abandon even a portion of this land is in some ways a sacrilege, a betrayal of God's promise to the Jewish people. Muslims, of...