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 | CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
April 4, 1997 |
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Questions asked
in this forum:
Can Arabs and Israelis share Jerusalem? What can President Clinton do? What effect has Hamas had on the peace process? Can Israeli policy be compared to Hitler's? What role does AIPAC play in U.S. support for Israel? Can the United Nations contribute to achieving peace and security?
NewsHour Links
March 24, 1997:
Margaret Warner talks withShlomo Gur of the Israeli Embassy and Khalil Foutah of the PLO.
March 4, 1997:
Charles Krause talks with Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Arafat advisor.
February 13, 1997:
Charles Krause discusses Clinton and Netanyahu's meeting with Dore Gold, foreign policy aide to Netanyahu.
January 15, 1997:
Jim Lehrer leads a discussion of the Hebron deal.
December 18, 1996:
Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski debate a critical letter sent by eight former U.S. foreign policy chiefs to Israel. -
October 15, 1996:
Warren Christopher talks about the peace process.
October 2, 1996:
A NewsHour interview with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk.
October 1, 1996:
A NewsHour look at the emergency White House Peace Summit between Netanyahu and Arafat.
May 31, 1996:
Israeli Election Forum : The NewsHour's Charles Krause answered questions on Netanyahu's victory.
May 23, 1996:
Seeing the Future : a look at the Israeli elections.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the Middle-East.
OUTSIDE LINKS
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Palestine's Home Page
The Jerusalem PostTyrone Thomas of Poughkeepsie, NY asks: Middle East
In view of the volatile situation in the middle east. Do you think effort will be made to achieve a measure of peace and security? What role do you feel the U.N. can play in achieving peace and security?
Thank you!
Amos Perlmutter responds:
The United Nations has demonstrated in the last fifty years total impotence when it came to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Until 1993, with the exception of Egypt, all Arab and Palestinian delegations called Zionism "racism." Literally every U.N. resolution since 1950 has clearly taken the Arab position. This in view of the fact that the Arab block in coalition with the African block. And above all, the pernicious anti-Israeli role that the Soviet Union played in the United Nations augurs very little confidence that this impotent organization replete with a majority of kleptocratic and praetorian governments has ever succeeded in bring peace anywhere. Did the United Nations succeed in bringing peace between India and Pakistan or maybe between Greeks and Turks in Cyprus. Did the United Nations protect the Hungarian people from Soviet aggression? Or maybe the role in the recent cases of Somalia and Bosnia demonstrates that the U.N. as an instrument for achieving peace and security is ineffective.
Muhammad Hallaj responds:
When the Arab-Israeli peace process began in Madrid in October 1991, it was stipulated --because Israel demanded-- that no "parallel" effort is to be made. The purpose was to keep the U.N. out, because the Palestinians had broad support in the United Nations, as shown by scores of United Nations resolutions which remain unimplemented because of Israeli defiance, protected by U.S. vetoes. Sooner or later it will become evident that U.S. monopoly over peacemaking in the Middle East is sterile because of Israeli influence over U.S. foreign policy. The intervention of a third party, such as the U.N., will become the only viable way to pull the peace process out of the quicksand of Israeli intransigence and U.S. partisanship.
It was a U.N. resolution that created Israel in the first place, and the present peace process is based on a U.N. resolution. Excluding the U.N. makes no sense except to cater to Israel's paranoias.
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