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Accepting one's duties in calming the region

Several big Middle Eastern moments have coincided over the last few days -- the first anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, the former chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a decade since the assassination of former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, the shock replacement of the octogenarian Shimon Peres as leader of Israel's Labor party by a younger man who is now threatening to bring down Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition government.

In the minefield of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there are always reminders of how past follies led to present disaster. So former US president Bill Clinton's speech commemorating Rabin was not only a eulogy to the general who dared negotiate with his worst enemy, but also an attack on the late Palestinian president for his "colossal blunder" in failing to seize the rare opportunity of peace.

Clinton's version of this story is not new or incontrovertible, as other participants have argued that Israel's offer at Camp David in 2000 was neither as generous or as final has been painted. But then there is Arafat's response to Sharon's subsequent provocation: a second intifada that destroyed Oslo in a bloody welter of Palestinian suicide bombings and "targeted killings" by Israel.

Yet this blame game works both ways. Why does the US refuse to pressure Israel, even for its own good? Does Israel really expect to be able to maintain its biggest settlements in the West Bank, isolate Jerusalem and reduce a future Palestinian state to unviable and disconnected Bantustans? As ever, the biggest problem of this small land is that it has too much history and not enough geography.

So instead of dwelling on the past, it would be more constructive to see what lessons it holds for the present and future. One is that Rabin, Arafat and Peres all failed to deliver because the gradualist approach of Oslo left the peace process hostage to extremists on both sides.

Another is that the core conflict cannot be avoided: Israel's peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt will never move beyond cold formality if Palestinian aspirations are not satisfied. And just as Rabin broke the taboo of dealing with the PLO (though the PLO had changed by accepting a two-state solution), future Israeli leaders may have to talk to the Islamists of Hamas. Dismissing them as irredeemable enemies on the wrong side of a global "war on terror" will not do. And Hamas, seeking legitimacy by participating in elections, will have to convince Israelis that it can accept the existence of their state.

Linking disarmament to a genuine freeze on settlement activity is the right way to proceed, as laid down by the road map to peace. Israel must build on its Gaza withdrawal by easing border controls to allow desperately needed economic development. Unilateral moves are not enough. Talk of a "moral road map" to end the occupation by Amir Peretz, Peres' successor, is encouraging, as is his demand to divert shekels from illegal settlements to poor neighborhoods inside Israel. And Dennis Ross, a veteran American negotiator, is right to say that Washington needs to do more. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has not yet managed to correct the impression that US President George W. Bush will always acquiesce in whatever new facts Sharon has created on the ground.

Efforts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be seen in isolation. Mayhem in Iraq and suicide bombings in Jordan are hardly conducive to calm in the West Bank and Gaza. Arabs and many others are hostile to the US' "democracy agenda" for the Middle East, arguing that this is intended to justify the disastrous adventure in Iraq.

Still, the US is not responsible for all ills in the region. Weekend talks in Bahrain failed because of objections by Egypt to a democracy-building role for NGOs.

Arabs and Israelis need a lot of help from their friends. But they also have to take responsibility for their own fate, look to the future and stop squabbling endlessly over the mistakes made by all sides in the past.
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