Peace? It's not likely

Editorial

The most unpopular president in the history of the United States is lending his good offices – or, at at any rate, his offices – to find a solution to the decades-long conflict between Israel and her neighbors. Whether George W. Bush will have more success at this venture than every preceding president and world leaders with far more seniority, diplomacy and respect is an open question.

At about the same time, our prime minister is wading into the same fine mess. In meetings with Jordan's King Abdullah, Stephen Harper discussed free trade, nuclear technology and the remote hope for Mideast peace.

King Abdullah, it seems, is becoming a leading advocate for Israeli-Palestinian entente and must be welcomed warmly for his efforts. But he is deluding himself and others if he refuses to acknowledge the single issue that is head and shoulders above all other causes of conflict between the two sides. This barrier to peace has been ignored, downplayed and outright dismissed by most commentators and observers. Even in news stories where this two-ton elephant is hinted at, it remains oblique.

Given the split between Hamas and Fatah, international commentators say, there is a fear that Palestinian (Fatah) President Mahmoud Abbas will come off looking like an Israeli collaborator. This is no doubt true, and it is key to understanding the continuing conflict that a person committed to peace could be dismissed as a collaborator. It is as a direct result of the refusal of the Palestinian Authority after 1993 to acclimate their population to the idea of peace that we face so treacherous a path today.

Indeed, the culture of violence that was so enthusiastically cultivated by Yasser Arafat and his warlords is the cause of the current catastrophe, wherein a democratically elected legislative government has devolved into civil war with the executive branch.

The question now is whether Abbas, who inherited this mess, can make peace with Israel and keep his own people from rearing up and deposing him. Abbas inherited one of the world's most corrupt entities from Arafat. Until this core reality is addressed, there can simply be no lasting peace. If Abbas is a leader – and only a true leader can make peace – he will need to abandon, once and for all, the Arafat strategy of playing the peacemaker abroad while stoking the home fires into frenzied blazes of Jew-hatred.

Walking the fine line between assuaging the forces of anti-Israel extremism at home and pleasing the world leaders who seek peace in the region, Abbas must do more than agree to a tepid peace and to keeping a lid on the violence. He must fundamentally alter the political and cultural climate of his people. He must lay a foundation upon which future generations will see mutual respect and peaceful co-existence not as an example of collaboration, but of both self-interest and humanitarianism.

The reality is that Palestinian society remains one where Jews and Zionists are depicted in much the same manner as hard drugs are depicted in ours. Until the day comes when Palestinian children are educated in ideas of co-existence and not in the current curriculum aimed at exterminating Zionism, there will be no peace. And since three or four generations have now been fed on the mother's milk of hatred, it will be a very, very long time before the conditions exist in Palestinian society to co-exist in truly peaceful neighborliness.

Whatever proposals might be put on the table by Bush or the new Mideast special envoy Tony Blair or Harper or any other brave soul who ventures into this den of failure, nobody should blind themselves to the real barrier to peace. It is not security barriers or the "right of return" or boundaries or the fate of Jerusalem that are the real obstruction to peace – it is the genocidal incitement and hatred that has been bred into generations of Palestinians.

It is a sad fact that peace will not come at the negotiating table, but in the classrooms. If the Palestinian Authority began today to inculcate in its youngest generation a preparation for co-existence, we might have peace in a decade or two. As long as King Abdullah, Bush, Blair or anyone else continues to operate under the delusion that peace will come by negotiating the perceived injustices routinely delineated by the Palestinians and their allies, peace will remain a distant hope.

Palestinian incitement and the official fanning of flames of hatred are the reasons for the continued conflict. Refugees, borders, the sovereignty of Jerusalem: these are all red herrings. Until Palestinian society evolves to the point where a leader who seeks peace is no longer discounted as a collaborator, peace continues to move further and further away.

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