Human beings first
SEVILLE - Spanish tourists who
walked into the dining hall of the Barcelo Gran Hotel in Seville
this week would probably find it hard to believe that the people who
were engaged in a relaxed conversation at the next table were an
Israeli Knesset member, a Palestinian diplomat, a former Jordanian
minister and an Egyptian professor.
The annual meeting of the EU-Israel Forum in Seville is one of
dozens of conferences at which Israelis meet Arabs, particularly
Palestinians from the territories. Because of the violence at home,
they take themselves far away, to Spain, Norway, Greece, Turkey and
even the United States. They cross seas and oceans to convince the
other side of the justice of their cause, but also to gain a better
understanding of the sufferings of the other side.
Sometimes they quarrel and raise their voices. Sometimes one has the
feeling that if they were left in the same room for a day or two,
they would emerge with a solution to all the struggles over land,
water and airspace that have kept generations of politicians in
business.
British parliamentarian Peter Mandelson, former Northern Ireland
secretary and member of cabinet, brought with him to Seville his
rich experience as a negotiator in the talks that preceded the Good
Friday Agreement. "The difficult task is to see the conflict from
the other person's standpoint," says Mandelson. "Why are they acting
this way? Why are they refusing to act? Why is compromise difficult?
Why are they using this language? Why are their leaders apparently
so cowardly? Why are they fearful of taking greater risks with their
own supporters?"
Politicians, of course, don't lose sleep over questions like these.
They are preoccupied with the upcoming primaries. Attempts to
understand your neighbor's troubles don't generate headlines.
Mandelson's words have a direct bearing on Israel and the
territories. "Ultimately," he says, "conflict resolution does not
rest on lawmaking or on constitutional settlements. It requires
values - human, civic, social values - triumphing over violence,
over denial of rights, over a desire to vanquish. Only strong
enduring values are capable of replacing the prejudices that fuel
violence. You can soften, mediate, channel prejudices, but only
building up a body of different values keeps a peace process going
in the long run." Herein lies Mandelson's greatest hopes for the
durability of the peace process in Ireland.
The Israel-Palestine Center for
Research and Information (IPCRI) is one of the organizations that
has been working for years to foster the values Mandelson is talking
about. In a letter sent out this week, IPCRI directors Dr. Gershon
Baskin and Dr. Zakaria al-Qaq call on leaders in the region and the
Western world to make the establishment of a Palestinian civil
society a top priority. They warn that if something is not done
soon, the vacuum created by the destruction of the Palestinian
Authority institutions will be filled by religious fundamentalists,
radicals and street gangs, turning the territories into another
Algeria.
The intifada, they say, has already cost the two sides nearly $10
billion. With half of this gargantuan sum, an
Israeli-Palestinian-international foundation could have
rehabilitated all the refugees in Lebanon and persuaded most of the
settlers to go home. Why should hundreds of thousands of refugees
thrown into camps in Lebanon and tens of thousands of Israelis sent
to the occupied territories have to wait until their political
leaders reach an agreement on who controls the walls under the
Temple Mount?
Sometimes it is difficult to understand how millions of people,
Israelis and Palestinians, so eager for peace according to the
surveys, can stand idly by and allow themselves to be deceived by
leaders who propel them from one war to the next. With the help of
"popular" leadership and cooperation between neighbors, civil
societies can bend politicians to their will. They have the power
not only to build trust and understanding between peoples, but also
to shatter myths and create a new reality.
By Avika Eldar
|