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Jonathan Friendly is the national editor of , which owns the weekly Jewish newspapers in Detroit and Atlanta. He is a former journalism professor at the University of Michigan and a former reporter and editor at The New York Times.
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By Jonathan Friendly
June 16, 2002
President George W. Bush is right to insist that it would be futile to set a deadline for creating a state of Palestine before the Palestinians create a meaningful approximation of an open, honest and responsible government. The problem is such a government is a long, hard road away.
Sensible world leaders, including some from the Arab countries, understand that Yasser Arafat's time has past and that the Palestinian cause would be better served by his stepping down. President Bush's blunt statement last week that Arafat "has let the Palestinian people down" is actually an understatement.
But in his 40-year climb to the top of a kleptocracy, Arafat has done an effective job of squelching any potential successors. His cosmetic rearrangement of his cabinet on Monday did nothing to clarify the succession issue (and precious little to repair the corruption and inefficiency of his government). Thus the near future portends massive internal strife on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip as the next generation of would-be leaders jockey for a position.
In that setting, it will be impossible for Israel to negotiate any sensible settlement. Indeed, the likelihood is that the terrorism of the last 20 months will continue indefinitely, for the competitors will most likely be emerging warlords, some of them secular and some of the Islamists but all of them spouting the rhetoric of violence against the Jewish state. They will frequently kill each other and blame Israel for the deaths. No Israeli leader is going to negotiate while the suicide bombings, the random shootings and stabbings continue either inside the Green Line or in the settlements.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is seeking a regional conference this summer that could craft a long-range peace plan, and it is just barely possible that the meeting will produce helpful new ideas and disclose improved Arab attitudes toward Israel's right to exist. Surely most of the region recognizes that the warfare has not improved the Palestinians chances for a better future, and Israelis are clearly eager to end the months of fear and the economic collapse the Intifada has brought.
But all parties need to recognize how long and slow the process of reestablishing any mutual trust between Israelis and Palestinians will be. Looking for a quick fix to be imposed and enforced by outsiders is a recipe for failure.
For now, the best that the United States can do is to stand firmly against allowing terrorism to reap rewards at a hastily assembled negotiating meeting. It must continue to demand real change in Gaza City and Ramallah as a precondition for substantive talks. It must continue to press the Arab states toward their own governmental and economic reforms that would give them some standing in the 21st Century world.
The European countries that spend so much time bewailing the "victimization" of the Palestinians could actually make themselves useful by lending experts to help the Palestinians build a proper civil service and legal system with some teeth in it. Those experts might also serve as monitors to track whether European aid is being spent on community building or being diverted into the terrorists' coffers.
If the Arab world is sincere about wanting peace between Israel and the Palestinians it can and should show it by refusing to tolerate the vile anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric that fills its airwaves and its government-run press. It can provide meaningful economic and political support to moderate Muslim clerics and secular movements that promote education and entrepreneurship.
Much as we would like a quick resolution, we have to remember that the Jewish-Arab hostilities have existed for millennia. We shouldn't throw up our hands in despair or say that the tensions will never go away or that the Palestinians are incapable of the needed internal reforms. But we will need boundless patience if we are to nurture a lasting peace.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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