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Bumpy Road to Mideast Peace
The Middle East issue ranks highly in the top 10 international news stories of the year yet again in 2000. Unfortunately, this year's Middle East story is not as pleasant as in 1994 - when Yasser Arafat, then the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres shared the Nobel Peace Prize for reaching the Oslo peace accord which paved the way for peace and reconciliation.
This year blood has been flowing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after three months of clashes that have killed more than 340 people, mostly Palestinians.
Hopes of a new summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak were dashed this week when Barak said he would not attend.
The summit, which was to be hosted by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, was expected to discuss newly-presented proposals from US President Bill Clinton.
Israel accepted Clinton's blueprint for peace, while Arafat said he had reservations with some of the points and would continue studying them with Mubarak.
Fresh violence also makes the prospect of a summit bleak.
The future of Middle East peace process now looks uncertain.
In January, peace talks resumed between Israel and Syria after a freeze of nearly four years. Unfortunately, the talks broke down over the issue of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau seized from Syria by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War.
In May, Israel unilaterally pulled out its troops from southern Lebanon ending 22 years of military occupation, but hostilities still continued along the Israel-Lebanon border after the retreat.
Israel also implemented troop withdrawals in two phases from 11.1 per cent of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip before March. Both pullbacks were delayed, due to Israel's reluctance to fully honour signed peace agreements.
During the Camp David summit between Arafat and Barak in July, both sides sought a final-status deal to end the 52 years of conflict.
But a lack of agreement after 15 days of marathon negotiations made the possibility of peace seem even more remote.
Tensions boiled over on September 28 when the right-wing Israeli leader Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to the Temple Mount, a holy shrine for both the Jews and Arabs.
Three months of violence has led to the loss of at least 343 lives.
UN officials have warned Israel that economic sanctions and territory closures preventing more than 100,000 Palestinian day labourers from working in Israel will only increase Palestinian poverty, frustration and violence.
Israel says the closures are needed to prevent terrorist attacks.
The crisis is estimated to cost the Palestinian economy US$10 million every day it persists.
"Improvements in Palestinians' living conditions have been completely destroyed over the last two months," UN Mideast special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said earlier this month.
The Israelis and the Arabs have no choice but to make peace.
Thorny issues lie ahead for both sides: the fate of Jerusalem, regional borders, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugees.
The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and sovereignty over Al-Haram Al-Sharif, which houses al Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site, in the Old City.
Israel declared all of the city its eternal capital after seizing it in the 1967 Mideast War.
Nearly 4 million Palestinian refugees, who were forced to flee Israel in 1948 after it was formed, still dream of returning.
The Israelis contend that allowing even 5 per cent of the refugees to return would be a demographic catastrophe for the world's only Jewish state, which currently has a Jewish population of about 5 million.
The United Nations' partition plan in 1947 set the imaginary border between the Palestinians and Israel. At present, Israel still occupies most of the West Bank, and dozens of Jewish settlements scattered over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where a future Palestinian state is to be established.
Dismantlement of these settlements has proved to be a prickly problem.
Everyone hopes for a breakthrough on the current impasse.
Clinton, who leaves office on January 20, wants to add a Mideast peace deal to his presidential legacy.
Barak, whose hold on power became another casualty of the Palestinian-Israeli violence, resigned on December 10 after proving unable to stop the uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The prime minister is anxious to forge a deal because polls show it could be his only chance of winning re-election on February 6.
Arafat, the man who declared that Palestine would be the first nation born in the new millennium, wants to save his people from war and suffering and give them the homeland which has been a dream for over half a century.
The road to peace is rocky, but can be navigated if some important changes are made.
The United States, the main broker of the Middle East peace process, needs to stop favouring Israel in negotiations.
Israel should sincerely address reasonable requests of the Palestinian people and fulfil promises that have already been made.
Israel must refrain its troops from using excessive force in conflicts. The Palestinian authorities should also try to restrain their people from further confrontations.
Efforts must be made by both sides to reduce animosity and create a favourable atmosphere for further talks.
Christmas was quiet in Bethlehem because of the continued fighting as pilgrims shunned the town where Jesus was born.
Hopefully Bethlehem will soon again become a tourist resort.
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