 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 27 July - 2 August 2000 Issue No. 492
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Inhuman pressures
By Abdel-Alim Mohamed*
It was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak who endeavoured so strenuously to drive the peace process into an impasse -- so that he could call for the second Camp David summit, an inescapable and fully justified event but also the ideal context in which to place pressure on the Palestinian side.
Such pressure is twofold, coming from Clinton (in his capacity as the American mediator) as much as Barak. And a large part of it involves reminding Arafat of Camp David I -- the message being that a Palestinian rejection of the results will be pointless, and that what is required is a "peace" to last for decades, regardless of its consequences for the Palestinians.
Equally relevant are the American and Israeli domestic political agendas: Clinton wants to end his term on a grand note by mediating a final resolution of the conflict, paving the way for the Democratic candidate and coopting the Jewish lobby; while Barak, besides gesturing to the Israeli extreme right by arousing Palestinian hostility, wants to present himself as a moderate, a diplomat with insight and power.
Whatever the nature of the pressure, however, it remains true that issues like Jerusalem and the refugees cannot be compromised. For the former affects 30 billion Muslims and Christians, and the latter involves the vast majority of the Palestinian people. Why indeed should the international community endorse pressures that are both fundamentally immoral and essentially inhuman?
* This week's Soapbox speaker is senior researcher at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies and editor of its publication, Israeli Affairs.
