High stakes in Mid-East talks
Posted Saturday 4 December, 16:58 Bahrain time
By Dr Toby
Dodge, Consulting Senior Fellow for the Middle East,
IISS
King Abdullah of Jordan, in the opening speech of the Manama Dialogue 2010, identified the settlement of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the key to gaining peace across the wider Middle
East. ‘Our region will not enjoy security and stability unless we solve the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and Arabs, Muslims and Israelis find peace,’ he
stated.
The King reiterated that the Arab Peace initiative, launched by
the Arab League over eight years ago in 2002, remained the best vehicle for a
comprehensive and sustainable peace. ‘The Arab Peace Initiative offers more than
just an end of conflict. It offers a lasting peace that will allow Israel to
have normal relations with 57 Arab and Muslim countries, and will free our
region from the threat of war and conflict.’
However, King Abdullah added a sense of urgency in
moving the parties towards a settlement. ‘Geographic and demographic changes are
threatening the essence of the initiative’.
The King added: ‘As a solution continues to elude us,
faith in negotiations, as the only path to peace and justice, is eroding. And if
hope is killed, radical forces will prevail. The region will sink into more
vicious warfare and instability, threatening security far beyond the borders of
the Middle East’.
In the questions following his
speech, King Abdullah addressed Israel’s vision of its own future. The Israelis
he spoke to could not imagine what type of country they would inhabit in in ten
years time, he said. The King stressed that they faced a profound choice, living
in ‘Fortress Israel’ or making peace with the Palestinians. The major choice for
Israelis over the next decade was described by the King as either a ‘democratic
Israel’ at peace with its neighbours or an ‘apartheid Israel’.
