Ulster experience shows peace talks the only long-term option

By NICOLA LAMB foreign editor

The London newspaper the Mirror this week carried a front page with a cutting cartoon on it.

There was President George W. Bush in full cowboy regalia, guns cocked, spurring on a poodle sporting the face of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Down one side ran the words: "Sit, beg, fetch, roll over, KILL". Underneath was the subheading, "War on Iraq: It's when not if, vows poodle Blair."

A strong statement from the politically left tabloid which has supported Blair in the past. In this instance it was reflecting unease within the Labour Party over Blair's where-America-goes-we-follow foreign policy and specifically his support for the Bush Administration's proposed "regime change" for Iraq.

If there's one world leader who is showing himself not to be Bush's poodle it is Israel's bulldozing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Last Friday when Dubya affected a steely gaze for the world's cameras and drawled: "Enough is enough", Sharon missed his cue.

He was supposed to jump to attention, tug forelock, remember the US$3 billion ($6.95 billion) in annual American aid and pull his troops out of Palestinian territories.

But he has well and truly trampled over the diplomatic niceties of the script and made the most powerful man in the world look surprisingly impotent. For a week, anyway.

Bush gambled with presidential prestige in making such an unequivocal demand as Israel's closest ally. But Sharon has responded to United States' calls for "restraint" in the past.

This time the pitbull has slipped the leash and is refusing his owner's pleas to return to his kennel.

Most people would not deny Israel's right to protect its people from suicide bombers who deliberately set out to kill and maim innocent civilians trying to live normal lives in city malls, restaurants and cafes.

But is this military offensive, this "disproportionate use of military violence" as Britain's United Nations ambassador put it, the right approach to take?

The Army is occupying Palestinian territory, Palestinian cities. Israel's tactics involve using overwhelming firepower and exploiting its advantage of helicopters and tanks.

The Palestinian populations attacked have included suicide bombers, militiamen, security forces and many civilians. All have been endangered by the Army's sledgehammer sweeps for "terrorists".

Suicide bombers who wage war on civilians fit the definition of terrorists, but security forces defending their territory and families from an invading force do not.

Buildings have been blasted out, power cables and water supplies hit and hundreds of thousands of people forced to squat in their homes with little food.

Israel has fired missiles into Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp and according to aid agency reports, strafed residential areas with combat helicopters and bulldozed refugee homes.

Aid agencies also say food supply trucks and ambulances have been denied access to refugee camps, though there have also been reports of curfews in the fighting and the Army allowing some evacuations of wounded.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, in a complaint about the fighting in Jenin to Israeli Defence Minister Benjamin Ben-Eiliezer, said that dozens of bodies were piled in the streets and Palestinians were deprived of food, water and electricity. Homes were demolished with their residents still inside them and those who emerged to get supplies were shot at by the Army.

The BBC reported that nearly 2000 Palestinians have been detained in mass roundups. Sharon claimed that more than 500 of those detained had Israeli blood on their hands.

This hardly amounts to a targeted military operation just against suicide bombers.

Sharon's stated aim is to crush the "terrorist infrastructure" and the Palestinian people in general are being clobbered in the process.

He is making a previously harsh, unpalatable existence for the refugees even more of a living hell, sharply compounding layers of misery and hatred. Such treatment will probably push more Palestinians towards the view that inhumane extremist solutions are the only path to take.

Sharon's goal was to silence the bombers. He achieved that - for nine days. The sickening bus blast in Haifa showed how difficult it is to defend against a murderous intent allied with nothing left to lose.

Long, exhaustive peace negotiations, driven by a political will strong enough to see them through can be the only real solution.

And there's an obvious blueprint to follow.

American involvement in Northern Ireland's peace process helped keep it on the tracks despite the best efforts of terrorists to derail it.

If the Bush Administration shrugs off its previous diffidence and gets more involved in the Middle East, it could be the primary engine to power a peace initiative forward.

The hope must be that as in Northern Ireland, the process will then breed momentum from the gains of peace and the desire of those involved to make it work.

Interestingly the carnage in the Middle East has overshadowed the significant move by the IRA to put more of its weapons "beyond use".

It is the second such act of decommissioning since last September and occurred this time without the concerted pressure of the British and Irish governments.

It demonstrates that negotiation, behind the scenes diplomacy and brinkmanship can make a difference.

Feature: Middle East

Map

History of conflict

UN: Information on the Question of Palestine

Israel's Permanent Mission to the UN

Palestine's Permanent Observer Mission to the UN

Middle East Daily

Arabic News

Arabic Media Internet Network

Jerusalem Post

US Department of State - Middle East Peace Process