The simmering conflict between Palestinians and Israel shows no sign of abatement and the much-hyped formula of two nations existing side by side is not going to work for lack of sophistication in Bush administration's measures.
This was stated by American scholar Dr Norton Mezvinsky while delivering his lecture entitled 'US, Israel and Middle East' at the Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad.
Dr Mezvinsky's lecture was part of IPS program featuring two lectures. The other lecture was delivered by Dr Roger Van Zwaneberg on 'Imperialism'.
Norton said that US condemns violence by individual Palestinians, who resort to it in desperation, but does not stop Israel from attacking Palestinians and from target-assassination of Palestinian leaders.
The noted American scholar, who is also author of many books on Middle East, said that the US has continued to play the 'traditional role' instead of being a true mediator.
"Its mild criticism of Israeli violence against Palestinians is nothing but window-dressing and, therefore, misleading," he told an audience of scholars and foreign policy experts.
Saying that Bush's foreign policy is influenced by such hard-liner neo-cons Pearle and Wolfowilz, Dr Mezvinsky said that it is Christian Zionists more than Jews and Israeli lobby that play significant role in shaping the US policy under President Bush.
Referring to Israeli laws and contentions of its founders and other leading politicians like Moshe Dayan and Ben Gurian, Dr Norton said that Zionism was legislated into the character of the Israeli state. He termed Israel as 'exclusivist' and 'discriminatory' state which has created two classes: one of Jews and the other of non-Jews.
This is evident from such enactment as the one that maintains that 92.5 percent of the occupied land cannot be leased or sold to non-Jews.
He proposed a bi-national federal system for the resolution of the conflict. He felt that peoples on both sides are tired of the unending tension and want to see and end it. "Isrealis and Palestinians do not want to continue a situation where their children live under mortal threat," he asserted.
Saying that both parties have to come to a "reasonable compromise", he felt that there would be no solution to the problem if they did not agree to live together and come down from their respective hard-line positions.
Dr Mezvinsky remarked that he does not approve of killing of civilians by Palestinian suicide bombers, but he blames Israeli government more for the rise of violence because it is a policy of a government as compared to individual acts of some Palestinians.
Dr Roger's lecture on 'Imperialism' gave a wider and ideological real freedom. "This cannot be achieved without establishing justice, removing asymmetry of power," he said.
He said in today's world an imperial power controls minds and peoples, their resources and regions. An effort has to be made to bring about change; a global movement is needed as individual states do not find themselves capable of resisting the imperial power.
"This can be started by interaction of people across cultural, political, divides."
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