By Marwan Muasher and Javier Solana
Friday, March 18, 2011
As revolutionary change sweeps across the Arab world, it is easy to think that now is not the time to push for peace between Israel and Palestine. Until the dust settles on the new Middle East, the old road maps seem dated, and conventional wisdom holds that to expect that progress toward a peace agreement can take place in the context of regional upheavals is an example of wishful thinking.
But the opposite is true. Even with so many failed efforts in the past, there is a clear window of opportunity for the United States and Israel to urgently push for a lasting settlement.
Everyone needs to start thinking differently about developments in the Middle East. The international community’s old approach was to prioritize stability over democracy and pursue Israeli-Arab peace on a completely separate diplomatic track. This policy proved to be a failure. Placing stability ahead of democracy brought neither stability nor democracy, and isolated peace efforts went nowhere.
If the United States and other world powers want to make headway on their three key objectives – stability, political reform, and peace – they need to understand how the three are linked and then pursue all of them simultaneously and holistically. Picking and choosing which challenges to address or care about only increases the risk that they will become intractable problems instead.
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
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