It is quite evident that Middle East Politics is in turmoil and it poses imminent dangers to global efforts to restore peace.
The Middle East conflict goes back to Biblical times and it has emerged with new dimensions. However, there is a large space left where redemption would be possible if achieved it is a triumph for the mankind that yearned for peaceful existence. In this context, the Daily News speaks to Director of the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies Professor Sultan Barakat on the latest developments in the Middle East Peace Process, lessons learned from the past and the role of the US as mediator.
Prof. Barakat also came up with suggestions for the post-war reconstruction development in Sri Lanka. “My first recommendation is to undertake an evaluation and review of what kind of reconstruction and reconciliation has been implemented over the last 10 years,” he said.
Excerpts
Q: What is the Main Impediment when it comes to peace between Israel and Palestine?
A: The main impediment is the fact that Israel, the occupying power, is refusing to accept a United Nations Resolution that goes back to 1948 and they are also refusing to extend to the Palestinians the rights that they aspire to have for their own citizens. So as long as you have a population which is now rapidly growing, and if you deny them their basic rights, it is not going to be peaceful. So we have one side that has all the power which is the occupying side. As you know Israel occupied Palestinian territories in 1967.
Israel is having increasing support, particularly from the United States. So at the moment with the Trump Administration it has become even more difficult to get the Israelis to see the light and acknowledge the right of the Palestinians. Israel is not willing to give up its power position. The current US Administration is not helping. I think President Trump’s approach to this conflict is the wrong approach at the moment. The more time goes on the more regional forces will try and exploit this conflict for their own benefit. The Iranians and Saudi’s have an interest. They will support one side or the other.
Q: What are the latest developments in the Middle East Peace Process?
A: It has been ongoing since 1991 with the Madrid talks. Then everyone thought that President Bush pressed the Israelis to come to the table and that things would be resolved. And the Palestinians were recognized; the Palestinian Liberation Organization was recognized as the legitimate representative of the Palestinians. And then they started talks. The idea then was that these talks would not last forever. They were meant to be talks leading to a result. But unfortunately that result was delayed, year after year.
Everything went well until the killing of Yitzhak Rabin – the Israeli Prime Minister. This was also followed very closely by the massacre in Hebron of a number of Palestinians in a mosque by an extremist Israeli. The extremist Israeli wing has no intention of sharing the land or having peace with the Palestinians. That created a reaction from the Palestinian. So it has all been building up and I think the main obstacle is lack of political will to live up to the expectation of the peace process. I think peace can be achieved in the Middle East but there has not been enough political will and every Prime Minister wants to be popular amongst its people and they seem to compromise the overall objective of peace for short gains. But when these short gains add up one to the other they lead to a reduced ability for an overall peace process.
Q: Do certain parties benefit from this conflict? Is it about greed and power?
A: The main conflict is ideologically based. As long as you have a group of people who have left the land, according to them, 3000 years ago but it is their right to return from whichever part of the world they may be in, they all have the right to return to Palestine according to their own ideology. The problem is that everyone returning displaces someone else.
That is the real core of the problem. There are lots of sides benefiting directly and indirectly. Directly it would be selling weapons, marketing, security agendas and gaining land.
They are all interested in the conflict continuing. Now we see that there is tension between Iran and Israel, which is very similar to that between Israel and Iraq in the early 1990’s. We are reliving the same scenario now but this time it is with Iran. As long as the tensions exist it is very difficult to resolve the direct Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Q: Could you comment on your role as the Director for the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies?
A: The Center is only two years old. It was established to carry out research and understand the conflict from our regional perspective. We get people coming from the West doing research and trying to understand the issues and resolutions put forward. This time we are trying to do it the other way around. We are trying to get the Middle East to research for itself. The Center has a Masters’ programme in Conflict and Humanitarian studies. And that is why we are here. We are bringing our students to understand Sri Lanka’s experience in resolving its conflict and what lessons can be learnt from it for the Middle East.
Q: One of your latest publications is Understanding Influence: The Use of State-building Research in British Policy. Comment?
A: This book brings together findings from a larger study done over the course of three years and it focuses on British Policy in supporting fragile states. Britain has been a leading donor for recovery from state fragility around the world. So they have many programmes in countries like Somalia, East Timor and elsewhere.
This book looked at all the policies since the late 1990’s to the early 2000’s. It tried to trace as to what extent, the research that they have commissioned and the ideals that they have generated have actually been taken on board in terms of policy.
To what extend that research is feeding into their strategies and how effective it has been in addressing the bigger issue of state fragility and bringing peace in some of the countries they have been heavily involved with a particular focus on Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Nepal.
Q: If you talk about world peace what lessons can we learn from the past?
A: I think for me the main lesson we learn is the importance of justice and to produce sustainable peace. To win a war with military support is relatively easy. But it is not sustainable because if you don’t provide justice to all sides including the victims it is very difficult to have long term peace. A few days ago we celebrated 100 years after World War I. Everyone knows that war ended without justice to everybody. As a result we had World War II. So it is very clear to us that we have to have the justice component right from the very beginning and reach a political settlement between warring parties.
Q: The conflict between Israeli and Palestine. Do wounds run too deep for the healing?
A: I think healing could come relatively quickly when you get a degree of justice restored. But at the moment how can you heal a displaced person who has lost his home. We have three million Palestinian refugees. These people need to go back home. If they can’t return to their houses how can you think about healing? So the first step is restoring their rights. Until some of those structural issues are addressed it is very difficult to talk about reconciliation and healing. But it can be achieved. During the early years of peace talks between Israeli and Palestine , Rabin had the political vision and the ability to achieve peace, he was working with King Hussein of Jordan and Arafat and between these three people there was that idea of peace and very quickly they became friends. They all attended each others’ celebrations and then when Rabin died both Hussein and Arafat were at his funeral. These were things that were unthinkable a few years before that. It shows there is a possibility of healing and reconciliation but you have to make the first gesture of restoring justice.
I feel that Israel’s stand point is not helpful at all. I sometimes think peace is not in the interests of Israel. The nature of the Israeli society must be understood. A long time ago there were many Israeli tribes that did not agree with each other. For them to agree, they need an external threat. And this is what they see in the Palestinians. That is the threat that is forcing them to work together.
The Israeli military is the only mechanism that can forge a people into one people. Every young man and woman at the age of 16 has to join their military for two years, and their mentality and ideology is shaped during their two year service. What happens then is these young people are thrown into the deepest end of the conflict. So they go through very harsh experiences that really shape their identity. For that to continue, they have to have a conflict.
Q: Sri Lanka is also recovering from a 30 year old cruel war. What are your suggestions for the post-war reconstruction development in Sri Lanka?
A: It has almost been 10 years since the conclusion of the War. My first recommendation is to undertake an evaluation and review of what kind of reconstruction and reconciliation has been implemented over the last 10 years. I know a lot has been done in view of infrastructure. But there are still some issues that need to be addressed, for example there are still some displaced population. For one reason or the other they cannot go back to their villages. And that has to be resolved. Maybe their land is still being occupied by the military. A solution has to be found for them to return. The restoration of the use of the Tamil language in government administration is a good thing. That will open the ways for better communication between the two communities.
Q: The USA played the role of a mediator in the Middle East Peace Process. Can you elaborate on role of the US as a mediator?
A: The USA was always in a difficult position as a mediator. Because The US is one sided and always on the Israeli side. So during the first talks it was Norway who brought the Palestinians and the Israelis together. The US was brought in because they offered sufficient guarantees for both parties financially, in terms of security and military wise. No one in the world can put pressure on Israel unless it is the US. And that was what President George Bush did in 1991 by threatening to withhold aid to Israel for the first time.
The role of the US is really important in reigning the Israelis. As far as the Palestinians are concerned they have grown to mistrust the US. That is because their experience has not been very good. At the moment the US would like to mediate to bring peace. President Trump has outlined a new peace deal. But this has been difficult for the Palestinians to accept because it has started out by ignoring them. The deal was drawn without their participation. It is a two way discussion between the US and the Israelis without Palestinians in it. It is happening at the expense of the Palestinians. The US cannot be seen as an impartial mediator in the conflict right now.
Q: What do you think of some of the actions taken by President Trump for example US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital or President Trumps’s order to shut down PLO office in Washington?
A: The problem is Trump is approaching this from a business mentality. And in this mentality there are no emotions. There is no heart or ideology. This conflict is not a business deal. This is not buying or selling real estate in New York which can be sold again in the future with a greater profit.
This is a conflict about a land 3000 – 4000 years old in some peoples’ minds. It has to be resolved in a comprehensive way. He is not willing to talk to the Palestinians and understand their position. He is very biased towards the Israelis. Even in his presidential campaign he relied heavily on the Jewish American vote.
Professor Sultan Barakat, is the Founding Director of the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit (PRDU), at the University of York. Professor Sultan Barakat is also the Founding Director of the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies
Professor Barakat is internationally well known having over 25 years of professional experience working on issues of conflict management, humanitarian response, and post-conflict recovery and transition.
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