The Middle East Peace Meet. (2007 Article)

The Middle East Peace Meet. (2007 Article)

I was looking at this cartoon caricature showing this bicycle but with two different opposing heads though joined together as one bike. In one direction was Condoleezza Rice saying 'Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk!' whilst the opposing side was Dick Cheney uttering – ‘Confront! Challenge! Threaten!’ In the centre was George Bush sitting over a placard that read Mid East Policy. Uncomfortable Bush sitting between the two was heard to be muttering – It might be quicker to walk. The caricature is by The Christian Science Monitor appearing in one Oman English Daily. That caricature could best describe the real situation in the ground.

Another English Daily has this picture. Below it said – A Palestinian shop owner displays souvenir mugs with writing in English and Arabic that reads "Annapolis Conference for Peace, for the sake of peace in the land of peace, Palestine, Fall 2007. Note: please keep this souvenir, but in case of the conference's failure, you are only asked to break this mug" at a shop in Gaza City (Palestine). Then there is this one - Hamas says conference decisions not binding. Another photograph shows the Israeli right wing activists take part in a demonstration in Jerusalem yesterday against the US –sponsored peace in Annapolis, Maryland – Reuters.

Is it any wonder that there is so much cynicism and skepticism in the air? Nobody thinks that after that meeting anyone will come out from the meeting to say the talks have failed. No one can say that there will be success or failure from now. It is all wait and see. The wheels will not need to be invented. Bill Clinton really tried hard to push it through including Final Status talks and failed miserably. No one can dispute that Bill Clinton was more personally committed and involved than any of the US Leaders so far. He had a stronger team with him any way, especially with the Palestinians with Yasser Arafat than Mahmoud Abbas vis-à-vis Hamas in Gaza. All that said and done, this is a conference a first time in 7 years time. Everyone predicts failures and breakdown, especially with the extreme right in Israel and Hamas not being asked to participate, even if Syria was allowed to join at the last minute with Golan Heights being introduced topic in the meet.

In my column and in my book Between Us Only, I have repeatedly called for peace and harmony between the Israelis and Arabs – since I have been writing and even before. I still do. Whether the Jews and Arabs like it or not, they have to learn to live together in peace, understanding, love and harmony in this part of the world. Israel cannot delude itself to ever remain strong, controlling and dominating with especially the so-called special relationships with USA and their unlimited endless unquestioning support and assistance. A time will come when this will evaporate. There is nothing definite or permanent in life. No one knows for sure what will happen tomorrow. Simply no one!

Just imagine at what would happen if Arabs and Jews lived together in peace in this part of the world. The likely outcome would be a block and grouping by itself to be recognized and respected, the Arabs with their money and influence and the Israelis with their genius and intellectual capacity better redirected towards usefulness in peace and development – rather than war, confrontation and domination. They are the only colonial power still in domination – a sad outcome of peoples who had suffered humiliation, defeat and the holocaust with the annihilation of millions of Jews by the Nazis. You would have expected something better that from such peoples, than doing these to their own supposed to be First Cousins under the Great Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) – Peace be Upon Him. The talk of destroying others is also all crazy unbalanced thinking rhetoric, and nothing else.

When I was studying in UK, I had an Irish Lecturer who was really close and liked me a lot. One day he opened up to say to me – I am British, but I am also Jewish. For a minute, I was taken back, but soon composed myself. I then asked him why the volunteering – though I had suspected by his name. Far years later I had a Dutch boss who had admitted to me the same – though his own surname had betrayed him to anyone who knew it what it stood for.

At different times in my life, I had asked these same peoples the very same questions – Why are you who are supposed to be my first cousin killing and maiming me? Both replied to me the same – Not to you as Omani, we like you Omanis because you are decent gentle peoples, moderate and pragmatic flexible peoples. But the Palestinians are a different ball game. They want to kill and destroy us, so we are just protecting ourselves. When I brought the subject of what the Nazis did to them, they kept silent for a minute, but remained unmoved and undetached. Time is a great healer and motivator. People forget easily. A Preacher becomes a Doer of opposite what he preaches and the betrayer of what he is supposed to demonstrate and show as an example of.

Years ago, I was attending a Human Resources course in England, sent by my good old Company. There was this play act séance where false CVs were produced, and one was asked to orchestra and simulate an Interview Recruitment Panel. At the end of the course séance, each one were asked to justify their decisions. This one person (local British) was asked to justify why he did not recruit me for the simulated job vacancy? He replied formally because he was not impressed by how I had conducted myself in the interview. Cornered he later admitted – Because he is an Arab! I will never give a job to an Arab.

The lecturer concluded – M gave you the job, though on talking to him he knew you were Jewish. He knew that because of the same surname of his boss in Oman, yet he gave you the job because he was more interested in you as a person and what you could deliver to his company with your (false) CV. What did we learn here today, the Filipino Instructor (though British citizen) asked us the students. We have learnt today the elements of bias, prejudices, polarization, lack of professionalism, principles and ethics by some Job Interviewers who have no hang ups to cut corners and make unfair unprincipled unethical decisions based on personalities and bias. They may try to justify it on Formal Objective grounds, but the truth is all-different. Later on I became the favourite with all the British students there who said that they got it all wrong – and were all feeling guilty by the stereo typing, prototyping etc they had of Arabs as the 'bad evil party' – to the chagrin and dismay of my 'opponent' per se!

Even if the conference will fail, everyone will hope and pray that it will be the start of more things to move forward, not stall or move backwards. We need peace and harmony in this part of this world – if at least not for ourselves and our generation, than surely for history and future generations. I pray and hope desperately something good and positive will come out of all these – God Willing (Amin).