Peace isn’t possible as long as Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat remain rigidly tied to their respective ideologies.
At least that’s the view of one expert, Yaacov Bar-Simon-Tov, professor of international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“Sharon and Arafat are incapable of looking past their interests and their personal histories,” said Bar-Simon-Tov. “Neither one of the two leaders is ripe for change, and that’s what’s essential for any peace accord.”
Bar-Simon-Tov made his remarks during a talk Monday night at San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency hotel. The speech was sponsored by American Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Referring to Arafat’s hesitation in the peace process, Bar-Simon-Tov said the Palestinian leader’s cachet was in extricably linked to struggle –and that any resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle would render him irrelevant. When asked by an audience member if Arafat had already achieved irrelevant status via Sharon’s government, Bar-Simon-Tov laughed and conceded it might have happened ahead of Arafat’s timetable.
But the Turkish-born professor said Sharon has also built a political career tied to the concept of struggle and that he, too, was ill-prepared to reach an equitable solution to the conflict.
According to Bar-Simon-Tov, one of the main reasons for the outbreak of violence between Israelis and Palestinians is that the Oslo accords were fundamentally flawed. The 1993 agreement laid out a blueprint for the future while neglecting to provide any framework for discussion should any of its provisions fail, he said.
Furthermore, said the professor, the principal actors in the accords were not wholeheartedly committed to the treaty. He contrasted the Oslo accords with 1978’s Camp David accords, where Anwar Sadat had a very tangible goal in mind — the return of the Sinai Peninsula — that dovetailed with Israel’s desire for peace.
Bar-Simon-Tov is chairman of the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University. The program is dedicated to the promotion of scientific research in the theory of international relations.
Rarely did the educator venture outside of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in his talk, other than to say that Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was considered a sign of weakness by both the Hezbollah and the Arab world in general.
The one reference he made to the Pan-Arab world was in response to a question posed by an audience member. The questioner asked the professor’s opinion of the Arab “academia” perspective on Israel’s existence.
“It’s true that that’s a huge problem,” said Bar-Simon-Tov, noting that even if Arab military and political leaders were willing to negotiate, many Arab academics still hew to a much more nationalistic perspective.