On television, Chris Matthews discusses the fence underconstruction in the West Bank while Joe Scarborough explains theadditional money requested by Bush for the war and reconstructionin Iraq.
Conversely, Yossi Alpher, a senior adviser to Prime MinisterEhud Barak during the 2000 Camp David talks, gets ready for”A Conversation on the Middle East: Where Do We Go FromHere?”, moderated by Professor Jim Hollifield, director ofthe John G. Tower Center for Political Studies.
Thursday night in the Umphrey Lee Ballroom, about 200 members ofthe Dallas community and SMU students attended a lecture thatcovered the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in theMiddle East and possible outcomes of what might happen in thefuture.
Alpher emphasized a wide range of issues, including the CampDavid talks, the roadmap to peace, the Alpher Plan and conflictresolution under the current world leaders while disclaiming theviewpoints presented were his own and not representative of anygroup or the Israeli government.
Alpher went over reasons why Camp David was a failure, reasoningthat each party went in without prenegotiated stances on Jerusalem,which has been the main issue in resolving the peace conflictbetween Israel and Palestine.
Regarding the roadmap to peace, Alpher commented on PresidentBush and his efforts in foreign policy.
Alpher stated that Bush was the first American president tooffer a solution of a two-state resolution to the Middle East.
He said that Bush is not serious about establishing peace andwas “probably surprised by how difficult it was.”
Alpher suggested a map that enabled Israel to incorporate aroundtwo-thirds of the settlers into its final status borders, whileannexing some 11 percent of the West Bank and Gaza that becameknown as the Alpher Plan.
“Territory did not cause the failure of the peaceprocess,” said Alpher, blaming demographics, geography,violence and current leadership.
In the next decade, Jews will be a minority and Arabs amajority.
“In the attempt of Israelis to establish a Jewish andDemocrat state,”,Alpher said. “You cannot be a minorityto rule a majority of people.”
He also expressed his doubts in President Bush, Prime MinisterSharon, and Palestinian leader Arafat, saying, “None of theleaders of today are going to stop violence or bringpeace.”
Alpher says that even though Arafat is more part of the problemthan the solution, removing Arafat physically would produce acollapse of Palestinian authority and put surrounding Arab countryleaders on the defense — basically, it would backfire.
He said he has faith in the U.S. government’s ability toproctor peace if the administration is prepared to take politicalrisks to build peace in the Middle East.
“A link [exists] between a successful peace resolutionbetween Israel and Palestine and peace in other middle easterncountries.”
He wanted all SMU students to know that there are commonalitiesbetween Israel and the U.S. since both uphold democracy and thatthe United States has been very beneficial in protecting andproviding security for the Jewish people in Israel.
The discussion ended with questions from the audience and arequest to check out an Internet based Israeli-Palestinian weeklydialogue of which Yossi Alpher is co-creator calledbitterlemons.org.
“It would have been more conducive and helpful if therewas someone representing a Palestinian viewpoint. It was pretty onesided,” Ayub Jiwa, junior history and political science majorsaid.
Some students, like Dawn Jenkins, sophomore internationalstudies major, went in without much knowledge about the issues athand.
“His approach seemed to be short-term, practical andrealistic goals to the issues, but he didn’t give anylong-term end to the bad blood,” Jenkins said.
Sofia Perez, sophomore international studies major, said”He didn’t really pose much hope for peace and it was abit offensive because it seemed like he didn’t wantAmerica’s help.”
All three students agreed the question “Where do we gofrom here?” was not completely answered. But Alpher did statethe U.S. cannot make peace between Israel and Palestine,emphasizing the two countries have to make peace among themselves.”There are some conflicts that don’t havesolutions,” Alpher said. Though spoken with an air ofuncertainty, it was an answer nonetheless.
