The Chronikler

Peace summit or the height of folly?

By Khaled Diab

Can an activists' peace summit at the top of Mont Blanc help bridge the abyss of Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

24 August 2010

The young Israelis and Palestinians at the summit of Mont Blanc.

With diplomacy leading nowhere in a hurry and the situation steadily worsening between Israelis and Palestinians in recent years, even the most optimistic doves have had their wings clipped by the hawks who prey on every fledgling initiative, often before it has had a chance to hatch.

Against the backdrop of this political vacuum, a group of young Israelis and Palestinians (all of whom are citizens of Israel) have quite literally held their own peace summit – at the top of Mont Blanc.

Backed by the Swiss NGO Coexistences, the eight young men and women scaled Europe's highest mountain after months of rigorous training as part of an initiative called Breaking the Ice, which seeks to thaw relations between ordinary Palestinians and Israelis. According to the organisers, mountaineering was chosen because it is an activity that requires a lot of trust and co-operation. Mountains, being imposing and seemingly insurmountable edifices, are also highly symbolic, albeit of a kind that some may regard as clichéd. They represent tough challenges and struggling against the odds which, once overcome, enable the climbers to rise above the situation and reach dizzying new heights.

Those watching carefully will realise that this is not the first time Palestinians and Israelis have joined forces in what some might regard as little more than a stunt. For example, a similar group journeyed all the way to Antarctica in 2003 (also under a “Breaking the Ice” banner, though it is not clear if it is the same initiative) – but their gesture has largely been lost in the wilderness of conflict.

Drawing on an all together different set of symbols, sceptics may wonder whether such small-scale stunts aren't as futile as making mountains out of molehills and whether such intrepid activists have their heads so high in the clouds that they’ve lost sight of the apparently intractable conflict grinding on relentlessly in the valley below.

At this point, it may be worth asking what the young people involved took from their experience. Well, some were sceptical too, to begin with. "I used to think this sort of programme romanticised the reality, and the reality is not good," admits Lobna Agbaria, a Palestinian-Israeli law student. "But I live in this reality; this is the situation, so what can I do to help improve [it]?" The experience of such intimate proximity also helped to reshape their perspectives. "This project actually changed my political opinion," acknowledges Tomer Ketter, an Israeli postgraduate student of geophysics. "Now that I have real friends who are Arabs, I think it opens an entire other world to me." Some have taken this notion of coexistence much further. For example, Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom (Peace Oasis), a community of 50 families, half Jewish, half Palestinian, living together in harmony not far from Jerusalem.

Herein lies the most valuable contributions of such efforts. What critics fail to grasp is that those initiatives do not pretend to entertain grand objectives; they are not about waving a wand to magically bring peace to the Holy Land. In a world where Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs rarely meet, any effort to build a modicum of understanding and empathy is welcome. In this regard, the idea behind a group like Combatants for Peace is doubly poignant. It not only brings together Israelis and Palestinians in a common cause, its members are all ex-fighters who have laid down their arms and reject violence, thereby dispelling two common stereotypes: that the other side only understands the language of violence, and that they cannot work with one another.

With top-level talks consistently proving to be dismal failures, direct contact between Israelis and Palestinians can establish grassroots dialogue and trust. Diplomacy has failed to deliver partly because of the disparity in power between the two sides and the absence of visionary and honest leadership, but also because of the almost complete lack of understanding between people. That is why I have, over the years, become convinced that Israelis and Palestinians need to start a bottom-up peace movement based on dialogue and civil rights issues: both sides are increasingly finding common cause over civil rights questions, as evidenced during regular joint protests held in Bil'in. Although these efforts make little or no difference in the grander scheme of things, they do cause a positive ripple, no matter how small, in the conscience and attitudes of people. And out of lots of little ripples waves are born.

However, some do find that dialogue and co-operation for their own sake are not enough. "I think most efforts [like these] are to be praised," says Labeeb Baransi, a Palestinian who left his native land to study in the UK and now runs an ICT company in Jordan. "If they carried out the joint effort to support a two-state solution I do feel they have just wasted a tremendous amount of energy. They would have gained a great deal more if they spent it on promoting the one state solution." Baransi advocates a single secular state for all Israelis and Palestinians, and founded a Facebook group which counts Palestinians, Israelis, Arabs, Jews and other supporters as members.

Although I am in favour of a bi-national, secular state eventually emerging, I do not hold out much hope of any final resolution – one or two states – occurring any time soon. For the time being, the most we can hope for is to help Palestinians and Israelis learn to walk together. As Heskel Nathaniel, who led the 2003 Antarctica expedition, put it: "We want people to see that even enemies can find a way to do great things if they decide to take on the challenge together."

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 13 August 2010. Read the related discussion.

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No place like home

By Khaled Diab

A return to an ancestral homeland is a dream that's long inspired diasporas – often with troubling results.

9 July 2010

The Zionist vision of a “return” to the Promised Land has been both a dream come true, when you view Israel’s success at forging a vibrant and modern melting pot of Jewish peoples from around the world, and a nightmare, given the decades of conflict it has engendered, and built as it is on the ruins of Palestine and the continued subjugation of the Palestinian people, not to mention the wholesale uprooting of Middle Eastern Jews.

But Jews are not the only scattered and oppressed group of people who have entertained sentimental dreams of a triumphant return to their ancestral homelands. For instance, a similar situation existed for Greeks. Like the Jews, Greeks had not possessed an independent homeland since Roman times and counted a sizeable diaspora across the Roman empire and its successors, right down to Ottoman times.

This diaspora played a central role in the creation of the modern Greek state by raising funds and awareness abroad. An example of these efforts was the Filiki Eteria (“Society of Friends”), a secret society set up in Odessa (Ukraine) in 1814 with the aim of establishing an independent Greek state. However, unlike in Palestine where Jews represented a tiny minority of the population, historic Greece was still largely populated by Greek speakers (albeit of bastardised regional dialects) who were able, with the support of the diaspora and European sympathisers (Philhellenics like Lord Byron) , to throw off the yoke of Ottoman rule rapidly.

Just as Zionism sought to unite all the Jewish peoples in a single homeland, the Megali Idea (the “Great Idea”) aimed to unite the “unredeemed” Greeks of the Ottoman Empire in a single country and, rather megalomaniacally, to restore the Byzantine Empire. Along with the draw of living in an independent Greece, diaspora Greeks experienced the push of increasing distrust fuelled by Greece’s expansionism and the regular wars it fought with the Ottomans. This culminated, after the World War I, in the modern world’s first large-scale compulsory “population exchange” which ethnically cleansed Turkey of its Greek Orthodox population and Greece of its Muslim population, robbing 2 million people of their homes and livelihoods and bringing to an end centuries of cultural and religious diversity.

But it’s not just Greeks and Jews who have dreamt of turning back the clock and returning to Zion or Olympia. Across the Atlantic, the romantic idea of a “return to Africa” has a long pedigree among the descendants of African slaves in the Americas, although few of them could say with any confidence precisely where “home” for them is.

So, Africa as a whole has become their “Zion”. This is quite literally so for Rastafarians who believe that they will one day escape their Babylonian captivity (western society) and return to Zion (Africa) and its capital New Jerusalem (Lalibela, with its beautiful churches hewn out of the rock, in Ethiopia) led by the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie whom they believe is the second coming of Christ.

In the 19^th century, some wealthy African Americans, like Paul Cuffee, became convinced – like Theodor Herzl later would regarding European Jews – that the only way for blacks in America to gain salvation and overcome the burden of racism and the legacy of their enslavement was to “return” to their ancestral homelands.

Just as Zionism would later be supported by both European antisemites, who saw the creation of a homeland for the Jews as the optimal solution to the “Jewish problem”, and European Judeophiles who were inspired by the romantic redemptive power of a return to ancestral lands, many racists supported the “Back to Africa” ideal as a solution to the “black problem” and well-meaning activists backed it as a way of emancipating and empowering poverty-stricken and marginalised African diasporas.

Both currents can be seen at play in the creation of Sierra Leone (created by British philanthropists to resettle London’s black poor) and Liberia (created by American slaveholders and philanthropists). Although they may have shared similar skin tones, these western implants pitted black colonists against the indigenous populations, which felt discriminated against and marginalised on their native lands. In Liberia, this eventually led to the overthrow of the Americo-Liberian regime in 1980.

The “Back to Africa” dream was revived in the 1920s by Marcus Garvey whose philosophy, known as Garveyism, focuses on the African diaspora returning to their ancestral continent to create a prosperous and advanced United States of Africa which would be a safe haven for all Africans.

In contemporary America, despite the growing empowerment of (and continuing discrimination against) African-Americans, the dream of “return” still carries a certain cache. DNA tests which claim to help African-Americans trace their ancestry are popular and some African-Americans invest in Africa, have resettled there or have gained dual nationality.

Examples include the American actor Isaiah Washington who recently became a citizen of Sierra Leone, where he has launched a number of philanthropic projects and Haitian cook Marie Claire Rimpel who opened up a restaurant in Accra, Ghana. In fact, Ghana is actively embracing diaspora Africans by offering them citizenship and the opportunity to invest in the country, partly for their development potential and partly as a symbolic apology for the role earlier generations from the Gold Coast, as it was then known, played in the slave trade.

So, why does the dream of “returning” to an ancestral homeland carry such appeal across such diverse cultural and geographical boundaries?

I imagine that the draw is partly nostalgic, the kind of romanticising of an idyllic past that so many of us humans are prone to. As someone who has spent three-fifths of his life outside his native land, I don’t feel a particular nostalgia or sentimentality towards my homeland. As I grow to feel more and more like a global citizen, I find the notion of nationalism increasingly mystifying and narrow-minded. However, I have the advantage of not being stateless or the member of a an oppressed or persecuted group, and I speak from the comfortable vantage point of having a fairly clear-cut core national identity, and a clear home base to which I can flee if ever the need arises.

All the examples above, despite their diversity, share certain features in common. One is the inferior status of these groups in the societies in which they lived or live – which not only made them vulnerable to persecution but also lowered their self-esteem.

Another factor is Utopian thinking: made to feel somehow sub-human by their host cultures and excluded from many areas of power and polite society, diaspora groups often entertain the belief that if they ran their own country they would be better off and could even surpass the society which puts them down or persecutes them.

So, is this kind of “return” a good solution to the problems faced by marginalised diasporas?

The trouble with attempts like these to turn back the clock is that time invariable moves on, rendering the distance between dream and reality a very significant one. Most modern projects to “return” to an ancestral homeland or to create a homeland for a particular group, such as Pakistan for Indian Muslims, have resulted in enormous human dislocation, suffering and death.

This is not to question the right of any of these states to exist today – and those that reject this right, as say some Arabs do vis-à-vis Israel, are also futilely trying to turn back the clock to a past that no longer exists – but merely to highlight that, when local populations are not taken into account, efforts to “return home” can bear a striking resemblance to colonialism, with the once-oppressed playing the role of oppressors. And it is the contemporary remnants of this colonial legacy that need to be dismantled if a more just future is to be created.

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Love and loathing in the Middle East

By calling Egyptians who marry Israelis traitors, Egypt has betrayed a group of vulnerable people who are guilty of little more than loving across enemy lines.

10 June 2010

Loving someone against the will of your family is tough enough for many people caught in such a predicament, especially in close-knit societies. Being in an international relationship can pose certain challenges, particularly if the couple do not keep an open mind and fail to live by a spirit of compromise and accommodation. But even when a couple live harmoniously and are completely compatible, the outside world may still not leave them alone, especially if their relationship bridges the unstable fault lines of a conflict.

I know of some Palestinians and Israelis, those most intimate of enemies, who have braved the risk of ostracisation and rejection by their respective communities for the sake of love. But I can imagine that keeping the toxicity of the bitter conflict between their two peoples from seeping into their private lives and poisoning their relationship can be a tough mountain to scale.

Although I know and have heard of a number of Egyptian-Jewish couples, I’ve never actually come across any Egyptians who are married to Israelis. This is hardly surprising as there is minimal contact between the two societies as a cold peace continues to reign between them.

But they do exist and, rare as they are, they’ve become the target of a high-profile hate campaign playing itself out in the Egyptian courts, instigated by Nabih el-Wahsh, that crusading Egyptian lawyer who has brought, mostly unsuccessful, morality cases against Egyptian intellectuals, including Nawal el-Saadawi, artists, religious leaders and government ministers.

The self-righteous lawyer turned his attention to this new demographic group  last year, and launched a law suit to demand that Egypt implement an obsolete 1976 article of Egypt’s citizenship law which revokes the citizenship of Egyptians married to Israelis who have served in the army (i.e. pretty much all Israelis).

A lower court had ruled in favour of el-Wahsh but the Egyptian government appealed the verdict. Last week, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the appeal and called on the Ministry of Interior to take the necessary measures to strip Egyptian men married to Israeli women, and their children, of their citizenship. The judge who issued the ruling made an exception for Egyptian men married to Palestinian women with Israeli nationality.

The verdict has sparked controversy in Egypt, with many applauding the court’s “patriotism”, while others believed that the government does not and should not have the right to strip an Egyptian of his or her nationality.

Against the backdrop of worsening ties with Israel due to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by the Israeli blockage and Israel’s ever-tightening grip on the West Bank, some were somewhat shrill in their applause of the verdict. Sahar el-Gaara, a secular Egyptian columnist, condemned every Egyptian married to an Israeli, even Arab Israelis, as a “potential spy, since he stamped his passport with an Israeli visa”.

By this flawed logic, although I am not married to an Israeli nor did I allow Israeli immigration to stamp my passport, the fact that I visited Israel and Palestine would also makes me a potential spy, even though I was there on a personal peace mission.

I always thought that the basic principle of the legal system is that a person is innocent until proven guilty. So, call me gullible or something, but I thought that, for someone to be guilty of spying, they have to actually be caught in the act of espionage – which, in this case, would be very difficult considering that most Egyptians married to Israelis don’t live in Egypt.

Besides, and more fundamentally, marriage is not a crime, and especially not one so serious that it would entitle the government to strip you of your most fundamental right, the right to nationality. A person’s choice of life partner is theirs alone to make, and society or the government, no matter how much they disapprove, should not have the power to limit that choice.

Of course, in reality, societies do limit that choice unfairly: for instance, gay marriages are not allowed in most countries, inter-faith marriages are completely forbidden in Israel (ironically due to an obsolete Ottoman system which allowed each religious community to set its own personal laws and the disproportionate power of the Israeli rabbinate in this hybrid secular society), and Egyptian Muslim women are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men (which is presumably why this court ruling does not apply to them). But revoking someone’s nationality is taking this to another level.

Egyptian human rights activists are up in arms at this preposterous verdict. “Egyptian law says citizenship can only be revoked if the citizen is proven to be spying on his country, [so] this verdict considers marrying an Israeli an act of spying,” Cairo-based attorney and human rights activist Negad al-Borai told Reuters.

The head of the Egyptian expatriate community in Israel, Shokri el-Shazli, suggested that the verdict was hypocritical. “In Israel, there is an Egyptian embassy and consulate which welcome a continuous stream of visiting Egyptian delegations,” he told al-Masry al-Youm.

And I cannot help but think that these Egyptians – small and marginalised group that they are – constitute an easy and soft target to channel popular anger at Israel’s blockade of Gaza and Egypt’s complicity in it.

It is still unclear whether the verdict will be implemented, but el-Shazli doubts it will. “This will create social and political problems internationally, not just in bilateral Egyptian-Israeli relations,” he opined, noting that the Egyptian community in Israel was considering its options and may raise the matter to the United Nations, including the Security Council.

While I’m personally against normalising economic ties with Israel until a comprehensive peace settlement has been reached, I welcome grassroots contacts between Israelis and Arabs, and believe that, if they so choose, couples who straddle the divide can help build bridges between the two sides and aid the process of humanising that we need to replace the current demonisation.

But whether or not they can bridge the gap between enemies is beside the point. The bottom line is that, whether you love or loath thy neighbour, you must recognise that individuals are not responsible for the group and are free to marry anyone they like.

________

Are marriages between Arabs and Israelis tantamount to treason? Vote now

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سبيل للخروج من فوضى الشرق الأوسط

يناقش خالد دياب بأن انتشار الأسلحة النووية سوف يستمر طالما استمرّينا في التعامل مع ترسانة إسرائيل النووية

5 May 2010

English version

إنه لتغيير مرحّب به أن يكون الرئيس الأمريكي باراك أوباما ليس فقط ملتزم بوقف انتشار الأسلحة النووية وإنما يدرك كذلك أن عدم انتشارها يبدأ في وطنه. مقارنة مع سابقه جورج دبليو بوش، الذي مزّقت إدارته العديد من المعاهدات التي وقعتها واشنطن حول الموضوع، وأعلنت عام 2003 أن الولايات المتحدة ستبدأ بتطوير جيل جديد من الأسلحة النووية الصغيرة "التكتيكية" والتي يمكن عملياً استخدامها في ساحة المعركة، وقّع أوباما معاهدة أسلحة نووية تاريخية مع روسيا.

تتميز هذه المعاهدة بقوانين غريبة في أعداد الأسلحة، وتبقى الولايات المتحدة وطناً لأكبر ترسانة نووية في العالم، والدولة الوحيدة التي استخدمت فعلياً القنابل الذرية في حروبها. إلا أن التزام واشنطن بترتيب بيتها الداخلي كان وراء النجاح النسبي لقمة الأمن النووي هذا الشهر، والذي حضره قادة من أكثر من 47 دولة.

وقد لوحظ غياب إيران، التي عقدت اجتماعاً بديلاً خاصاً بها حول نزع السلاح. ورغم أن هذا اللقاء أبرز نفاق القوى النووية في عدم رغبتها الالتزام بوضوح بنزع الأسلحة النووية، إلا أن التجمع لم يفعل سوى القليل لإزالة مخاوف واشنطن فيما يتعلق بطموحات إيران النووية. ورغم أن طهران تدّعي أن برنامجها النووي هو للاستخدامات المدنية فقط، إلا أن الطروحات العدائية للنظام الإيراني، وبالذات باتجاه إسرائيل، شجعت مخاوف بعض ذوي العلاقة من أن إيران تنوي سراً صنع قنبلة نووية.

كان غياب رئيس وزراء إسرائيل أمراً ملحوظاً آخر في قمة أوباما. كان بنيامين نتنياهو قد رفض الحضور، مشيراً إلى مخاوف من أن تتعرض بلده لانتقادات الدول العربية والإسلامية، وبالذات تركيا ومصر. إضافة إلى ذلك، قاوم وزير الدفاع إيهود باراك نداءات متجددة لإسرائيل بالانضمام إلى معاهدة منع انتشار الأسلحة النووية. وهي الدولة الوحيدة في الشرق الأوسط التي لم توقع على المعاهدة.

لم تذكر لا مصر ولا تركيا إسرائيل، رغم أن الوفد السعودي وصف الترسانة النووية الإسرائيلية على أنها "عائق أساسي أمام تحقيق الأمن والاستقرار في الشرق الأوسط".

وهو على حق. فرغم أن إسرائيل ما زالت مصرة على تبني سياسة الغموض الرسمية، يقدّر الخبراء أن الدولة حصلت على قدرات نووية بعد حرب عام 1967 بفترة وجيزة، وأنها تملك اليوم حوالي 200 رأس نووي حربي، مما يضعها بين الدول النووية الستة الأولى، بعد المملكة المتحدة.

تشكل ترسانة إسرائيل النووية فيلاً مشعّاً في الغرفة، وتؤخّر جهود تحويل الشرق الأوسط الملتهب إلى منطقة منزوعة السلاح النووي، وتوفر لجيرانها حافزاً للحصول على قدرات خاصة بهم.

لا يحتاج الأمر لذكاء خارق لإدراك أن ترسانة إسرائيل النووية تجعل من الشرق الأوسط مكاناً أكثر خطورة وقابلية للانفجار. ويدرك حتى أصدقاء إسرائيل ذلك. على سبيل المثال توقَّع تقرير لوكالة الاستخبارات الأمريكية عام 1963 بأن إسرائيل نووية سوف تستقطب المنطقة وتزعزع الاستقرار فيها، وتجعل على الأرجح "سياسة إسرائيل مع جيرانها ... أكثر صعوبة".

كذلك تطرّق التقرير لمخاطر حاضرة، مثل سعي عربي محتمل لقوة "ردع" خاصة بهم. ومن الأمثلة على ذلك برنامج ليبيا النووي السري، الذي وافقت طرابلس على تفكيكه في كانون الأول/ديسمبر 2003. وكان الرئيس الليبي معمر القذافي قد أعرب منذ سبعينات القرن الماضي عن رغبته في الحصول على قدرات نووية، جزئياً بهدف مجابهة إسرائيل.

وطالما تتمسك إسرائيل بترسانتها النووية فلن يذهب شبح انتشار الأسلحة النووية بعيداً. تدفع الحكومات العربية ومعها إيران منذ ثلاثين سنة على الأقل باتجاه شرق أوسط خالٍ من الأسلحة النووية. لا يمكن بالطبع تناسي أن بعض الحكومات تحفزها على ذلك عدم القدرة وليس المبادئ، أو قد تجد القضية النووية أداة دبلوماسية مفيدة ضد إسرائيل.

رغم ذلك، إذا كانت إسرائيل قلقة من إيران نووية، أو احتمالات حصول أنظمة أخرى في الشرق الأوسط على القنبلة الذريّة، فإن أفضل طريقة لتجنب ذلك هو إطلاق دائرة فعّالة بأن تعرض التخلي تدريجياً عن ترسانتها النووية وتوقيع معاهدة شرق أوسط خالٍ من أسلحة الدمار الشامل، مثلها مثل بقية الدول في المنطقة، مقابل تأكيدات إيرانية راسخة تحت إشراف دولي.

ولتحقيق ذلك، يمكن إنشاء منبر إقليمي يسبق المعاهدة، برعاية الوكالة الدولية للطاقة النووية والأمم المتحدة، وربما الاتحاد الأوروبي والولايات المتحدة للاتفاق على آلية شفافة ثابتة عادلة لفتح المرافق النووية في المنطقة أمام إشراف دولي محايد. تقوم هذه المبادرة بالتفاوض على برنامج زمني للإلغاء التدريجي للترسانة الإسرائيلية وأي برنامج ثنائي الاستخدام مشكوك فيه، وفي الوقت نفسه توفير دعم دبلوماسي وأمني لإزالة مخاوف الإسرائيليين وغيرهم من اللاعبين الإقليميين.

This article was written for the Common Ground News Service and was published on 29 April 2010.

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A way out of the Middle East’s critical mess

By Khaled Diab

As Barack Obama seeks to tackle the proliferation of nuclear weapons, it is high time for Israel to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

5 May 2010

Arabic version

It is a welcome change that US President Barack Obama is not only committed to halting the spread of nuclear weapons but realises that non-proliferation begins at home. In contrast with his predecessor, George W Bush – whose administration tore up many of the treaties Washington signed on the subject and announced, in 2003, that the US would start developing a new generation of small ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons which could actually be used during battle – Obama has already signed a landmark nuclear arms treaty with Russia.

This treaty has peculiar counting rules and the United States does remain home to the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and is the only country to have actually used atom bombs in warfare. Yet Washington’s renewed commitment to get its own house in order were behind the relative success of the Nuclear Security Summit earlier this month, which was attended by leaders from more than 47 countries.

Noticeably absent was Iran, which held its own alternative meeting on disarmament. Although this meeting highlighted the hypocrisy of the nuclear powers in their unwillingness to commit clearly to nuclear disarmament, the gathering did little to alleviate Western fears regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Though Tehran claims that its nuclear programme is exclusively for civilian use, the strident rhetoric of the regime, particularly towards Israel, has fuelled fears among some actors that Iran is clandestinely trying to build a bomb.

Israel’s leader was another noticeable absentee from Obama’s summit. The Israeli premier Binyamin Netanyahu had refused to attend citing fears that his country would be singled out for criticism by Arab and Muslim nations, especially Turkey and Egypt. In addition, Defence Minister Ehud Barak resisted renewed calls for Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is the only country in the Middle East that is not a signatory.

In the event, neither Egypt nor Turkey mentioned Israel, although the Saudi delegate did describe the Israeli nuclear arsenal as “a fundamental obstacle to achieving security and stability in the Middle East”.

And he has a point. Although Israel still maintains an official policy of ambiguity, experts estimate that the country acquired a nuclear capability shortly after its 1967 war and today possesses up to 200 nuclear warheads, putting it among the top six nuclear nations, just behind the UK.

Israel’s nuclear arsenal stands like the radioactive elephant in the room, hindering efforts to transform the potentially explosive Middle East into a nuclear weapons-free region, and provides its neighbours with a motive to acquire their own capabilities.

In fact, it’s not exactly rocket science figuring out that Israel’s nuclear arsenal makes the Middle East a more dangerous and explosive place – even Israel’s friends recognise this. For example, a 1963 CIA report predicted that a nuclear Israel would polarise and destabilise the region and would probably make “Israel’s policy with its neighbours … more, rather than less, tough”.

The report also touched on the attendant dangers, such as a possible Arab quest for their own “deterrent”. An example of this dynamic in action is Libya’s clandestine nuclear programme, which Tripoli agreed to dismantle in December 2003. As early as the 1970s, Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi expressed his desire to obtain a nuclear capability partly in order to counteract Israel’s.

And, as long as Israel holds on to its nuclear arsenal, the shadow of proliferation will not go away. For at least 30 years, Arab governments, as well as Iran, have been pushing for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East. Of course, it cannot be dismissed that some governments are motivated by a lack of ability rather than principle,  or may find the nuclear question a useful diplomatic tool against Israel.

Nevertheless, if Israel is concerned about a nuclear Iran, or the possibility that other regimes in the region will acquire the bomb, the best way it can avert this is to set in motion a virtuous circle by offering to phase out its nuclear arsenal and to sign up, along with all the other countries in the region, to a WMD-free Middle East Treaty, in return for cast-iron Iranian assurances under international supervision.

Towards this end, a pre-treaty regional platform – under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN, and possibly the EU and the US – could be set up to agree a transparent, consistent and fair mechanism for opening up the region’s nuclear facilities to impartial international supervision. This initiative would  negotiate a timetable for the phasing out of the Israeli arsenal and any other suspect dual use programmes, while providing diplomatic and security support to assuage the fears of Israelis and other regional actors.

This article was written for the Common Ground News Service and was published on 29 April 2010.

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Learning from the Sadat years

By Khaled Diab

The Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel remain controversial, but Arabs and Israelis can draw lessons from Anwar el-Sadat's quest for peace.

1 March 2010

Nearly three decades after his death, the former Egyptian president, Anwar el-Sadat, remains a controversial figure. In Israel and many parts of the West, he is best remembered for his daring trip to Jerusalem, where he became the first and only Arab leader to address the Israeli Knesset, and his deadlock-breaking peace accord with Israel.

But the rosy image of Sadat as world statesman, visionary and peacemaker overlook his questionable domestic human rights record, his dictatorial bent, his disastrous economic policy, the insipid corruption of his regime and his aloofness and arrogance towards other Arab countries.

In Egypt and the Arab world, he is celebrated for the victories he scored in the early parts of the 1973 war, the first time an Arab power had shown the titan of Israel’s military might to be vulnerable and so soon after the crushing defeat in 1967.

However, Sadat’s subsequent peace deal with Israel was far more controversial. Although many Arab leaders privately accepted that peace with Israel was necessary and inevitable – including Sadat’s predecessor Gamal Abdel-Nasser who conducted promising secret peace contacts with then Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett – none at the time were bold enough to say it publicly. Rather than working with Sadat to create a unified Arab position to negotiations, they turned on him instead.

In Egypt, opinion was and remains divided, with many viewing the Camp David Accords as a betrayal. However, most Egyptians, tired of what is widely viewed as the Arab desire to defend the Palestinian cause to “the very last Egyptian”, grudgingly accept the benefits of a cold peace.

Today, with a general Arab consensus on the need for a settlement with Israel, as embodied in the Saudi peace plan, criticism of Sadat has become more muted and nuanced: his vision is accepted, though his unilateral tactics are still widely questioned.

Now, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict looking as dire and insoluble as ever, what lessons can be learnt from the Sadat experiment?

One important lesson is the importance of symbolism and gesture politics in helping prospective peacemakers scale the walls of paranoia and distrust that separate Israelis and Arabs.

On both sides, many will say that the obstacles to peace – an ultranationalist, right-wing government in Israel, the rise of ultra-conservative Hamas in Gaza, the deadly Israeli siege of the Strip and the disarray and infighting among the Palestinian factions – are insurmountable. But things didn’t look particularly rosy back in the mid-1970s either, when war seemed to be the only show in town.

Then, as now, Israel was led by an ideologically rigid right-wing prime minister who, though he talked of the need for peace, was reluctant to negotiate with the Arabs or give up an inch of the dream of creating Eretz Yisrael. By going to Jerusalem and appealing to the Israeli people directly, Sadat forced Menachem Begin’s hand with a deft masterstroke.

Today’s Arab leaders could do well to learn that, faced with a powerful opponent who nevertheless fears them, a standoffish offer of peace, no matter how attractive, means little when it comes from a great distance. It needs to be delivered in person wrapped in olive branches.

In fact, the need for direct contact and negotiations between politicians from Israel and the frontline Arab states, not to mention the Arab and Israeli peoples, is greater than ever, given the level of mutual dehumanisation and distrust. That does not mean that economic and political ties should be immediately normalised – that will be one of the fruits of eventual peace – but there should be a broad and sincere dialogue and cultural exchange between those on both sides who wish to build enduring peace.

Israel could also draw similar lessons about the value of direct contact. Separated as they are behind physical and ideological walls, ordinary Israelis have negligible contact with their Palestinian neighbours, the people they most need to understand and coexist with. Israel needs to learn the language of its neighbourhood and start dealing with the Palestinians and Arabs in a way that will win them over – a good start would be to end its destructive and counterproductive blockade of Gaza.

In addition, both Israelis and Palestinians need to learn that violence has failed to resolve the conflict and will continue to do so. Israel needs to learn that its gung-ho “deterrent policy” deters little but the prospect for peace, while the Palestinian factions who advocate and employ violence need to realise that it achieves little beyond provoking the wrath of their powerful neighbour. Both sides would do well to learn from the tactics employed by their non-violent peace movements.

In the end, pragmatism is the only solution. As Sadat said in a 1978 speech in Cairo: “Peace is much more precious than a piece of land… let there be no more wars.”

It’s high time for Arabs to overcome their reticence to talk directly with Israel and for Israel to overcome its reluctance to negotiate a simultaneous settlement on all fronts. What we need, but are unlikely to get, is a comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This article was written for the Common Ground News Service on 25 February 2010.

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The human cost of cluster bombs

By Katleen Maes

Cluster bombs continue to hurt people and their livelihoods years after they were dropped.

September 2008

Lebanon: 21-year-old Fayz is sitting in his living room, staring at the leg he cannot use anymore because the nerves have been cut as a result of a cluster submunition explosion. Fayz has undergone several operations and is waiting to receive rehabilitation and psychosocial and educational support. His case is similar to that of many young people injured in the aftermath of the 2006 conflict with Israel. Except that Fayz was injured while herding sheep in the Western Beka’a valley almost 12 years ago. He has received no assistance to enable him to overcome his trauma or return to school.

Cluster munitions are imprecise weapons, designed to strike a greater surface area than many other conventional weapons by dispersing smaller, but still lethal, submunitions. Scattered on the ground, these submunitions create a large footprint. Within that footprint, they kill and injure both military personnel and civilians. Even in optimal test conditions, up to a quarter of submunitions fail to explode on impact. In real-life situations, failure rates are consistently much higher.

Cluster munitions: creating a lost generation in Lebanon?

The 2006 conflict in Lebanon drew widespread attention to the effects of cluster munitions on civilian populations. However, it was not the first time that Lebanon had been hit by these weapons. Prior to 2006, Israel had used cluster munitions in Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 1996 and December 2005. According to UN and media reports citing Israeli Defence Force (IDF) commanders, approximately four million cluster submunitions were delivered in the July–August conflict, most of them in the last 72 hours of the war.

Overlapping footprints, the clearance of visible cluster munitions (disturbing the footprints) and incomplete surveying make it impossible to estimate the total number of cluster munitions delivered, or the overall failure rate. However, it is clear that estimated failure rates are higher than the official figure of 5–23%. The UN Mine Action Coordination Centre in South Lebanon (MACC-SL) estimates that between 32% and 40% fail overall. This would mean that the recent conflict added approximately 1.5 million unexploded submunitions to the mines and ordnance already on the ground from previous wars.

As of 15 January 2007, there were at least 555 recorded cluster munitions casualties in Lebanon, of which 122 were killed and 433 injured. Children make up 24% of casualties; most of them, 114, are boys. A total of 338 casualties were recorded prior to 12 July 2006, and 217 casualties were recorded between 12 July and 15 January 2007 (53 of whom were children under 18). These recorded totals do not include up to 175 unconfirmed cluster munitions casualties during or shortly after the conflict.

Most people left south Lebanon prior to 10 August, undoubtedly reducing the number of civilian cluster submunitions casualties during the conflict. Due to the nature of the conflict, the use of different types of weapons and difficulties with data collection, it is impossible to determine how many people were injured or killed by cluster submunitions during strikes. In the aftermath of the war, reporting was only possible from accessible areas, and it is also understood that most Hizbullah casualties due to cluster submunitions are not included in the data. In the post-emergency phase, a retroactive survey should be conducted to provide appropriate assistance to cluster submunitions survivors as part of a larger group of people with disabilities (PWD), and to determine the impact of cluster munitions on civilians during conflict (to see if this weapon can rightfully be used in war) and in its immediate aftermath.

Cluster munitions are large surface weapons. In Lebanon, they were used by Israel against a non-regular armed force (Hizbullah) in a small but relatively densely populated area, contaminating places where civilians need to go on a daily basis, such as roads, farmland, gardens and homes. Most incidents immediately after cluster munition strikes occur in or near the house, when returnees investigate damage and try to make their homes habitable again. Several months after the conflict, some people were still living in tents in front of their houses because failed submunitions litter their homes. In the longer term, a large percentage of casualties occur while farming, herding animals or carrying out other livelihood activities. In addition to the loss of life and the economic damage, cluster munitions exact a high psychosocial and educational cost. People feel unsafe every step they take, the secure bastion of the home is not always safe, schools are damaged or opened late and many children are not free to play where they want.

The 2006 conflict resulted in a soaring cluster submunition casualty rate of just over two people per day until the end of the year. The average casualty rate in the years prior to the conflict had slumped to a low two per year. At the beginning of 2007, casualties dropped to an average of three a week, according to MACC-SL. The reduction of casualties is mainly due to the impressive clearance capacity in Lebanon, which has been able to provide a rapid response to the emergency. It is estimated that this will take until the end of 2007. Afterwards, pasture lands will be cleared and pre-conflict clearance can be resumed. However, 70% of southern Lebanon’s economy is based on agriculture, which means that cluster submunitions will continue to cause casualties at a steady rate.

Cluster munitions: between the immediate and the long term

Throughout the conflict, Lebanon’s medical and humanitarian infrastructure, though stretched to its limits, held up, with the assistance of a vibrant civil society and international organisations. With nearly 15 years of experience in the country, Handicap International (HI) scaled up its post-conflict activities. HI prioritised equal partnership relations with long-standing local partners. A partnership approach needs to be truly equal in order to ensure sustainability, capacity-building and local ownership. This is crucial as cluster submunition survivors often need life-long support. A varied, accessible, rights-based package responding to the needs identified by the survivors, their families and communities is a necessity to fully (re)integrate them into society. Otherwise, there is a real risk that these new cluster munitions victims – meaning the affected individual, their families and communities – will end up as many mine and ERW victims before them: one of the most impoverished groups in society, facing double discrimination. So, rather than building new structures, HI chose to strengthen existing ones by supplying materials and technical advice, and assisting with coordination issues faced by local agencies. At the same time, HI has worked to ensure the financial and physical accessibility aspects of aid and reconstruction efforts, and trained community de-miners to assist in cluster munitions clearance efforts.

In parallel, HI set up disability information and referral points, to respond to the specific and general needs of PWD – medical care, physical rehabilitation, psychosocial support, economic support and equal rights. HI is also in charge of optimising the coordination of international aid efforts. In partnership with the Ministry of Social Affairs and local partners, and supported by the European Commission, a telephone platform and online database of available local and international aid services was set up.

The issue of the rehabilitation and reintegration of explosive remnants of war (ERW) survivors cannot be separated from the broader context of development in the affected country. In these efforts, non-specialist agencies would benefit from liaising with national and international agencies dealing with cluster munitions or mine action in general. Most countries affected by cluster munitions have got a mine action infrastructure under UN or government auspices, and in cooperation with national and international NGOs. These agencies, in a first stage, need to be consulted to provide security and risk prevention briefings to non-specialist staff. These centres, like for example the MACC-SL and the Landmine Resource Centre, will be able to provide up-to-date information on casualties, mine risk education (MRE) and demining, and circulate this to all stakeholders upon request.

Secondly, development agencies should coordinate their crosscutting response with the technical experts and community liaison staff of the specialised agencies, to ensure complementarity of specialised and general assistance. Reconstruction sites, for example, need to be declared mine/ERW-safe before reconstruction starts. Education or psychosocial support programmes can include a standard MRE module. And reconstruction planning should take accessibility requirements for people with disabilities into account. Many large organisations, such as UNICEF, UNDP, the ICRC and the large NGOs (like HI), already integrate a standard mine/ERW component into their operations in severely affected countries, even if the focus of their work is more general.

Cluster submunitions: a worldwide generational problem

Cluster munitions have been used in 24 countries and areas, and their use is suspected in at least a dozen more. In 2006, cluster munitions were deployed in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, and are thought to have been used in Afghanistan. Apart from intermittent international protest, the issue of cluster munitions and the humanitarian impact – just like the items themselves – lay largely dormant until the Lebanon conflict.

HI research reveals that there are serious humanitarian problems with cluster munitions. Unlike the initial blasts, the effects of unexploded submunitions are more discriminate: they kill and injure almost exclusively civilians (98%). The research recorded more than 11,000 confirmed cluster casualties. But the real number could as high as 100,000 given that 91% casualties occurred in countries with incomplete or no data collection mechanisms, such as Iraq.

More than half the casualty toll occurs while people go about their normal daily business. Casualties are mostly male (84%), and nearly half of them are under 18 years of age. The number of casualties occurring while carrying out livelihood activities shows the direct economic impact on cluster-contaminated communities. In many of these countries, men are the traditional breadwinners. Since adult males and boys represent the majority of casualties, the socio-economic loss both in the immediate term and for the future cannot be underestimated.

Cluster munitions: bringing HI back to its roots

HI is exploiting its field and research experience in the area of victim assistance and data collection to provide a better understanding of the human cost of cluster munitions. In mid-2006, this resulted in Belgium becoming the first country to ban the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions. But it was the Lebanon crisis that triggered a worldwide public and media interest in the campaign. Some 350,000 people have signed HI’s petition calling for a ban. Spurred on by the Belgian ban, resolutions for a moratorium were tabled or passed in Australia, Austria, Denmark, France and Norway, and calls for a moratorium were issued in European Union and UN forums.

On 5 November 2006, local members of the Cluster Munition Coalition organised the first ‘Say No to Cluster Bombs’ day in Beirut, which was co-sponsored by HI. Hundreds of schoolchildren attended MRE sessions and tried walking with artificial limbs, and people signed a petition which was sent to Geneva, where the Third Review Conference of the UN Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) was convened the following week. At the CCW, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated: ‘Recent events show that the atrocious, inhumane effects of these weapons … must be addressed immediately so that civilian populations can start rebuilding their lives’.

During the conference, some states recognised that the CCW framework will not respond to the human tragedy caused by cluster munitions, just as it could not respond effectively to the landmine crisis ten years earlier. It has become clear that treaty negotiations outside the UN framework are inevitable. These will be led by Norway, which will try to extend the new model of diplomacy created by the Mine Ban Treaty: a fast-moving multilateral dialogue with extensive civil society input. On 22 and 23 February 2007, the Norwegian government invited 48 states, as well as UN and civil society groups, to Oslo to start a process towards an international ban. At the end of the meeting, 46 governments supported a declaration for a new international treaty and a ban by 2008. This conference was the first of a series during 2007 (the next meeting was scheduled for May 2007, in Lima, Peru). The declaration states that a legally binding international instrument will be agreed by 2008 that will ‘prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians, and establish a framework for cooperation and assistance that ensures adequate provision of care and rehabilitation to survivors and their communities, clearance of contaminated areas, risk education and destruction of stockpiles of prohibited cluster munitions’. The cluster bomb treaty was approved by more than 100 countries in May 2008.

Cluster munitions: a call for action

Within this legal framework, HI will be part of a treaty drafting committee. Drawing lessons from the Mine Ban Treaty, it is important that affected individuals, their families and communities are provided with an efficient and accessible rights-based assistance package, based on a twin-track approach which takes account of the specific requirements of survivors and the general development needs of the affected society. The international community is required to commit adequate material and technical resources, while acknowledging that the final responsibility in achieving appropriate assistance lies with the national governments themselves.

Through continued research into the human impact of cluster munitions, HI will ensure that the plight of casualties, as well as the economic, social and psychological cost of these weapons, is fully acknowledged and documented, not only in Lebanon but in all affected countries. The research results will be disseminated to support national campaigns and to feed relevant information back into field operations. In addition, HI will work closely with national campaigns and build their capacity.

The human cost of cluster munitions cannot be seen as old news – these weapons are spreading through new conflicts, destroying lives, disrupting communities and denying vulnerable populations access to the resources needed for economic recovery for generations to come.

Resources

Fatal Footprint: The Global Human Impact of Cluster Munitions

Handicap International’s Aid Coordination Platform

Handicap International’s Campaign Against Cluster Munitions

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines

Human Right Watch’s resource library on cluster munitions

This article first appeared on the Human Practice Network website. This is an archived item from Diabolic Digest.

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Disarming the bomb in the basement

By Khaled Diab

Israel’s weapons policy jeopardises the country’s own security and undermines efforts to create a nuclear-free Middle East.

August 2008

Israel’s interior minister Meir Sheetrit – who is vying to take over the reins from outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert – has struck a welcome note of caution on Iran in his campaign for the ruling Kadima party’s leadership.

On Wednesday, he said: “Israel must on no account attack Iran, speak of attacking Iran or even think about it… Israel must defend itself only if attacked by Iran, but attacking Iran on our own initiative is a megalomaniacal [and] reckless idea.”

Earlier, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy also struck alarm bells against calls to bomb Iran. He warned that an attack could hurt Israel’s interests for a century. “It will have a negative effect on public opinion in the Arab world.”

In fact, the ex-intelligence chief’s opinion is that, without doing anything, Israel wins anyway. “Ahmadinejad is our greatest gift,” he told the US-sponsored Arabic-language network al-Hurra on Tuesday. “We couldn’t carry out a better operation at the Mossad than to put a guy like Ahmadinejad in power in Iran.”

According to Time magazine, another senior Mossad official opined that: “Iran’s achievement is creating an image of itself as a scary superpower when it’s really a paper tiger.”

Although these statements, as well as reported US opposition and murmurs of dissent in Tehran against the regime’s posturing on Israel, reduce the possibility of a military confrontation for the time being, tensions could flare up at any time.

“Paper tiger” or not, Tehran’s strident rhetoric is fuelling public fear in Israel, which plays into the hands of hardliners. In addition, Israel may not trust Iran’s reassurances about its civilian nuclear intentions because Israel itself gave similar assurances but, nevertheless, went on to acquire a nuclear weapons capability.

In fact, Israel’s quest to become a nuclear power started shortly after independence, and the main driving force behind it was the country’s founding father, David Ben Gurion. The Israeli leader – who admitted to having nightmares about “a combined attack by all the Arab armies”, despite Israel possessing more firepower than all the Arab countries combined – saw nuclear weapons as the main way of ensuring Israel’s strategic security. Like Iran, he was also lured by the prestige factor of joining the nuclear club.

Following the Suez fiasco, Ben Gurion became more adamant. However, many senior officials opposed his nuclear designs for a number of reasons: they feared it would spark a dangerous escalation, draw resources away from conventional forces and cripple the struggling Israeli economy.

Despite this opposition, Ben Gurion, whose status allowed him to circumvent the cabinet and the Knesset, struck a landmark deal with France in 1957 to build a large reactor that could separate plutonium. Concerned at where this was leading, all but one of the members of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission resigned in protest at the growing military orientation of the programme.

Although the Dimona reactor was constructed in great secrecy, with not even a whisper in the Israeli press, word leaked out and, in December 1960, rumours spread in the western press and were confirmed by U2 spy planes. This triggered concern in Washington and Moscow, and fear and condemnation in the Arab world. The news also took the Israeli public by complete surprise. Ben Gurion assured the world that the reactor was “designed exclusively for peaceful purposes”.

It was around this time that Israel formulated its policy of nuclear ambiguity. Faced with international criticism and internal opposition, the legendary military leader Moshe Dayan developed the concept of what he ominously called “the bomb in the basement”.

Israel began its line that it would not be the first to “introduce” nuclear weapons into the region. Pressed on what exactly that meant, the then ambassador to Washington, Yitzhak Rabin, vaguely responded that Israel would not be the first to “test” such weapons.

Israel resisted international supervision under the IAEA and only grudgingly agreed to pre-arranged American inspections to limited sections of the Dimona facility which, critics argued, allowed it to hide the military activity at the reactor behind false walls.

Experts estimate that Israel acquired a nuclear capability shortly after the 1967 war and today possesses up to 200 nuclear war heads, putting it among the top six nuclear nations, just behind the UK.

Interestingly, a 1963 CIA report predicted that a nuclear Israel would polarise and destabilise the region and would likely make: “Israel’s policy with its neighbours… more, rather than less, tough”. The report also touched on the attendant dangers, such as a possible Arab quest for their own “deterrent”, as well as the damage to western interests in the region.

And, as long as Israel holds on to its nuclear arsenal, the shadow of proliferation will not go away. For at least thirty years, Arab governments, as well as Iran, have been pushing for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East. If Israel is concerned about a nuclear Iran, or the possibility that other regimes in the region will acquire the bomb, the best way it can avert this is to offer to phase out its nuclear arsenal in return for cast-iron Iranian assurances under international supervision.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 24 August 2008. Read the related discussion. This is an archived article from Diabolic Digest.

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Israel’s welcome barrier

By Osama Diab

Israel is building a new anti-migrant barrier along its Egyptian border – leaving Mubarak's regime with one problem fewer.

20 January 2010

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Palestinian reconciliation through the ballot box

By Khaled Diab

To break the destructive deadlock between Fatah and Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas should step down as Palestinian president, call immediate elections and organise referenda on the future course of the Palestinian struggle.

23 October 2009

Cursed as they are with bad leadership, the sad saga of the Palestinian people fluctuates between tragedy and farce. As if contending with a crushing occupation, embargoes, closures and the complete physical separation of the West Bank and Gaza were not enough, over the past couple of years, they have also seen the two parties supposedly representing them descend into petty and bloody factionalism.

To top it all off, one party is pragmatic and moderate but has failed to deliver peace or improve life for Palestinians. Instead, it has become aloof to the population, is rotten to the core with corruption and is widely perceived, with all the international funds flowing into its coffers and the American general Keith Dayton wielding significant control over the Palestinian Authority’s  security forces in the West Bank, to have become a kind of mercenary force for the Israeli occupation.

But the frying pan of the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority may prove to be nothing compared with the fire and brimstone of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Hamas may be less corrupt - for now - but it is ideologically fanatical, has been working hard to purge dissent in Gaza, is already restricting the freedom of Palestinians on the Strip, especially women, and, given its ideological rejection of Israel as a Jewish state, is far less willing to compromise with the Israelis. Of course, Israel and the international community did nothing to engage with Hamas’s early overtures towards moderation and, instead, punished Gaza, causing the party to harden its position and rhetoric.

With this poison and bitterness filling the air, it was perhaps optimistic to expect Egypt’s efforts - despite the country’s long experience as a mediator - to broker a truce between the two parties to reach fruition, especially since US president Barack Obama’s shift in rhetoric has not yet been matched by any shifts in reality.

The talks ostensibly broke down because of Hamas’s anger over the PA’s delay in endorsing the Goldstone report into Israeli war crimes in Gaza, which also criticises Hamas - albeit to a lesser extent - for targeting Israeli civilians. The party went so far as to accuse Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of betraying the victims of the Israeli offensive.

However, given how fundamentally the two factions differ and how Hamas appears to want to take over the helm of the Palestinian cause, it could just as well have been anything else. So, even if Egyptian diplomats manage to pull a rabbit out of the hat, any deal could quickly run against the rocks, particularly as trust of both Fateh and the Egyptians - who are perceived as agents of America and collaborators with Israel by certain segments of the Palestinian and wider Arab population - is low.

It is abundantly clear that Abbas, whose position keeps changing with the winds, has lost the plot and the only parties who continue to support his presidency are the Americans and Israelis. But this support is misguided. The presence of a weak and unpopular Palestinian president may serve the interests of extremists, for whom the prospect of continued Palestinian infighting is convenient, but it does little to forward the long-term prospects for peace.

To my mind, it is time for Abbas - who was once respected as a key architect of the Oslo accords and hammered out a workable blueprint for comprehensive peace with Yossi Beilin, which was derailed by the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin - to go, in dignity, and make room for the people to decide.

Abbas has already said repeatedly that the only way out of the impasse with Hamas is through the ballot box. But instead of delaying elections till the middle of next year, as Egypt has proposed, they should go ahead as scheduled in January - or earlier, if possible. In the meantime, Abbas should resign and hold his position only in a caretaker capacity until a new president is elected.

In addition, the issues facing the Palestinians are too controversial and complex to be left to any one party to decide. I believe that a series of referenda - financed by the international community - should be conducted on crucial questions of war and peace: negotiation v's confrontation; violence v's non-violence; two states or one; civil rights or national rights; Jerusalem, refugees, etc. A similar exercise should also be carried out among Israelis to crystallise what kind of future they desire.

Equipped with such clear expressions of popular will, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators can engage with a clear mandate, assuming that both sides’ vision for the future is compatible or, at the very least, reconcilable.

Personally, I hope neither Fatah nor Hamas win the elections. The Palestinians deserve a change of guard. Though I’m not Palestinian, my vote goes to Mustafa Barghouti and his Palestinian National Initiative.

This is an extended version of an article written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNS). It first appeared in the Chicago Tribune on 21 October 2009, and in the Kuwait Times and Newsobserver.com on 22 October 2009.

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