Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
Bumps on the 'road'
It's the settlements

Hadi Jawad
Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called on President George W. Bush Monday at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, to discuss what the White House has announced as "prospects for Middle East peace."

Because the two leaders merely danced around the issue of ending the occupation of lands in the West Bank held by Israel, prospects for Middle East peace will continue to be elusive. Complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories may not be a panacea -- and other difficult issues will have to be negotiated and resolved -- but without Israel's pullback to internationally recognized borders of 1967, the peace process many never get any traction.

The United States deftly invokes U.N. 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 President Bush invoked international law to demand Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. Israel has violated scores of U.N. 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 enraged by blanket American support for Israel and the heavy-handed policies of the Israeli Defense Forces. The brutality of home demolitions, along with the humiliation endured by 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 Palestinian territories must end, and the United States must pressure Israel until it agrees to do so. Recently, despite President Bush's objections, Israel has announced the construction of about 3,500 additional homes in the largest settlement in the West Bank.

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 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 President Bush during Monday's meeting must hold.

If matters come down to a staring contest between Bush and Sharon, Bush must not blink. Otherwise, as with previous attempts for peace in the Holy Land, the road map to peace will lead to another dead end.

Hadi Jawad is a member of the board of directors of the Crawford Peace House (www.crawford peacehouse.org), an interfaith center seeking peaceful alternatives to war. It was founded by Dallas activist John Wolf and is located in Crawford, Texas.

©2005 San Francisco Chronicle