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Journalism of Courage
Much comment in recent days has assumed that real progress was possible in what is called the Middle East peace process if the old bear had survived in power. This view seems ill-founded. Sharon was 8212; with great political difficulty 8212; able to lead Israel out of Gaza because only a small minority of Jewish settlers valued anything that was there.
He surely had no intention of allowing any dispensation on the West Bank that might enable the Palestinians to create an economically and socially viable state, never mind to achieve the self-respect indispensable to responsible behaviour8230;
The longstanding confrontation between India and Pakistan about Kashmir is the most dangerous example, because it is capable of precipitating a nuclear showdown. Only his month, Russia highlighted its eagerness to regain hegemony over Ukraine. China8217;s obsession with recovering Taiwan is the greatest threat to peace in Asia. Indonesia is a teeming muddle of peoples8230;
It surely makes more sense to consider the Middle East conflict against this background, of widespread impatience with inconvenient frontiers, than to perceive the predicament of Israelis and Palestinians as unique8230;
It is sometimes said that only Israelis and Palestinians can resolve their differences, that even the US has no real power of mediation. Yet the history of territorial disputes suggests that resolutions are seldom achieved by rational bilateral negotiation. They are almost always imposed either by a dominant third party, or by some decisive catastrophe on the spot, usually a war or a pogrom.
Excerpted from an article by Max Hastings in 8216;The Guardian8217;, January 9
