An American Jew On His Shame

As an American, as an American Jew, and as a longtime supporter ofPalestinian rights, I am ashamed.

Where Presidents Carter & Clinton made serious attempts to help broker apeace in the Middle East, I'm ashamed to tell all the Israeli and Palestinianfamilies who have lost loved ones in the past many months that the currentresident in the White House chose to do next to nothing and thus is partiallyresponsible for the rising crescendo of violence. Bush has no shame.

Where previous prime ministers of Israel have been at least interested in theidea of peace, the current PM, from the the very moment of his election --well before the unleashing of the suicide bombers -- has exhibited nothingbut a desire to behave like a cruel general of an occupying army, crushingall beneath his path, smashing any momentum toward peace, reveling in thehumiliation and suffering he can arrange. Sharon has no shame.

Where the elected leader of the Palestinian Authority once earned the world'sacclaim by promising peace with his Israeli neighbors, in his frustration hehas turned to partnership with terrorist groups to utilize indiscriminatesuicide-bombers as his final weapon against his people's oppressors. Arafathas no shame.

At Clinton's urging, the previous Israeli PM, Barak, daringly offered areasonable peace treaty to the Palestinians (it didn't contain all thePalestinians wanted, but enough to get the peace process heading towardfinality), but Arafat, thinking that by other means he could get somethingcloser to what he wanted, turned it down. (We're reminded yet again of AbbaEban's famous observation about the Palestinians never missing an opportunityfor missing an opportunity; now the Palestinians are joined in thiswrong-headedness by their Israeli enemies.)

Barak then was voted out of office for offering too much, and the old,bloody, war-criminal Sharon was brought in. A man with no vision other than alimited military one: to try to stomp the Palestinians into submission. Bushin the White House, a man with no vision beyond expanding his "war onterrorism" to other countries, decided to keep hands off the Palestinianissue, other than to say the U.S. supported a "Palestinian state," butwithno earthly idea how to get from here to there. And then there's Arafat, a manwith no vision other than going head to head with his old nemesis, Sharon, toforce the Israelis to end the occupation by blowing up innocent civilians inIsraeli marketplaces, pizza restaurants and public buses.

In short, three "world leaders" who operate on violence as the oneand onlyoption for solving what are essentially political problems, necessitatingcompromise. No wonder the Middle East is a powderkeg. Both sides are stuck inthe horror-groove, content to run the historical blame loop of"you-started-it-first."

OK, we know what the disease is, how do we cure it, or at least figure outhow to slow it down? How can we stop the current epidemic of killing frominfecting more, from bringing in Arab countries and Western countrieschoosing sides and starting a regional conflagration -- or even worse?

My own feeling is terribly pessimistic at this point. The parties areperilously close to the point of no return.

But there may be one more chance. If the U.S., as the only world superpower,were to work with the U.N. and/or organize a global coalition for Mideastpeace, and help arrange a way for both sides to back down -- perhaps withbuffering peace monitors inbetween the warring parties -- maybe, just maybe,there might be reason for some sliver of hope.

But it's clear that Bush & his hawkish advisors have no new ideas on thismatter, no desire to come up with any (which would have to include alteringU.S. policy in the region to lower the level of tensions), and insteadcontinue their meaningless sending of envoys to the area to arrange...what?another piece of paper signed, another set of promises made.

The result is that the violence ratchets up another notch, because both sidesknow that America is not seriously engaged and therefore there are nounbearable penalties for acting irresponsibly. Thus, Arafat can send moresuicide bombers, Sharon can re-occupy the territories, and Nero is content tolaze on his Texas ranch, in denial about the world about to explode in theMiddle East. (Maybe when an oil stoppage is mounted by Arab countries and thelines grow long at the gas pumps in Anytown, U.S.A., Bush may suddenly see anecessity for becoming engaged in the Middle East.)

There's no guarantee that deep and serious U.S. engagement right now wouldsend both sides moving, however slowly and vaguely, back toward an eventualpeace treaty. But if the U.S. continues to do the little or the nothing thatpasses for American Mideast policy these days, the Bush administration isgoing to have a lot of blood on its hands as the Israeli/Palestinian wargrows into white-hot intensity, dragging other countries into it.

OK, you may say, suppose that a ceasefire is arrangeable and both sides areready to meet.How can Jews and Arabs ever sit down at the same table and talk peace afterthe past decade ofmass slaughter, the ceaseless humiliation of occupation, suicide bombings ofinnocent civilians, etc.? How could Arafat ever agree to sit across a tablefrom Sharon, and vice versa, let alone sign a treaty document with him?

One way might be to lower everyone's expectations. The object is not to getthe enemies to trust each other, or like each other, or to revise theiropinion that they're dealing with anything other than bloodthirsty zealots.(If peace is ever achieved, those attitudinal changes might come later, asbyproducts of a few years of peace, and in mutually-beneficial water andother practical treaties.)

The object here is to get each side to say to the other: "We're here,we'renot going away, you're here, you're not going away; we wish you woulddisappear, or that we could make you disappear, but we realize realisticallythat it's not going to happen. Military slaughter simply doesn't get eitherof us to where we want to be, no matter how many tanks are employed, nomatter how many suicide bombers blow themselves up. Each of us wantssecurity, and to raise our children and grandchildren in peace. So, what canwe do to bring that security and peace about?

"We can't forget our respective historical claims and what we've done toeachother, but how can we move into realistic talks about what we can do TODAY tomake the situation better? What compromises might you have to make, whatcompromises might we have to make, to begin to bring us to that point?"

If both sides can come to a public realization -- as they almost did a decadeago -- that the other side is here to stay and their just demands andhistorical claims must be taken into account, and that military slaughterdoes not lead to what they want, then they can move on to the political,necessary-compromises stage, involving withdrawal from the settlements,formal recognition of Israel, reining in their Jew- or Arab-hating extremists,sharing Jerusalem, etc.

Is this THE solution? Probably not. But it's a starting point, and the U.S.simply must take the lead in making sure something like these ideas begins toalter the agenda and discussion in the Middle East. To do nothing serious, tosimply let tanks and suicide-diplomacy rule the day -- which is what Bush'snon-engagement policy amounts to -- is to condone utter madness.

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., the San Francisco Chronicle's theater criticfornearly two decades, has taught government and international relations atWestern Washington University and San Diego State University