Monday, January 14, 2008

Don't call us, we'll call you

Moshe Dayan had a secret meeting in Morocco

First, Enemies Must Agree -Uri Dromi

The Camp David summit in 1978 could not have happened if Moshe Dayan had not flown secretly to Morocco in 1976 to meet with Egyptian Foreign Minister Hassan al-Tohami. Following the understanding reached between the two, Egyptian President Sadat made his historic visit to Jerusalem a year later. President Carter's impact later, at Camp David, was only possible once the Egyptians and the Israelis had decided to make peace.

The Americans didn't have any role at the start of the Oslo peace process, which only happened after Israelis and Palestinians had secretly met. Later, at Camp David in 2000, Clinton strove to broker a final settlement of the conflict, but failed because the Palestinians, led by Yasser Arafat, weren't ready for the deal.

So, in the wake of Bush's visit, both Palestinians and Israelis should go back to the arduous task of making peace between our peoples. When we're ready, we should call the Americans to join the ceremony.

(Miami Herald)

2 comments:

LHwrites said...

This makes things sound more hopeful, and makes me almost question comments I made on another post. But of course, those were different times and different negotiators. It is a murky mess, predicting the Middle East.

Bruce said...

Yes, a mess trying to predict anything in the MidEast, which seems to follow it's own rules. As i'm fond of saying in another context, the best predictor of human behavior is the past...unfortunately, we can probably only expect more of the same, until someone decides to step out of the box.