War and Peace, two words with different meanings that cant be understood easily. What is a war, and when should a state decide to go to war? Is war only when you see tanks and soldiers and planes invading another country, or is it also when you use it in fighting an other ideology and you call it fighting terrorism, or is war also when you say you are resisting an occupation, different explanations and expressions that can’t be understood easily. Where does this will come from? Isn’t it a normal attitude of the human beings to be aggressive from a while to a while, and isn’t it natural too to see someone or a group willing to die or kill in order to protect their group of people? And from the other side, what is peace? Is peace when you try to calm down the situation and convince the fighting sides to stop the violence only for a period of time by giving them attractive deals, or Peace is when you design it to be appropriate only for one of the two fighting sides, the strong side? Or real peace is when you succeed in getting the both sides satisfied of what they are demanding, but also make them sacrifice a little in order to achieve what is called “Peace”. So Peace and War have different meanings and explanations and the reason is that each one define it the way he or she or them see it in their own way, and here comes the affecting strong power that is sometimes needed to imply what comes in the middle of all of these meanings and explanations, and this is exactly what we don’t have at this time, and to be honest I think we didn’t have it also in the past, because the history of the humankind always included either one strong power that supported one side of any conflict as it is now at these days, or two strong powers that used to use the sides of any conflict to show who is stronger. The reason for the meanwhile conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is that we don’t have any power that is ready to be in the middle and create balance and also make pressure on the both sides to reach a fare understanding and solution for their conflict. The solution is not in the hands of the Israelis and the Palestinians, and I will explain why. The Israelis for an example has a large part of their people that are religious and settlers and believe that even the lands of the West Bank that is supposed to be under the Palestinian control since Oslo, is also a part of the Jewish State and their Religion demands from them to keep it and live in it. This means that no Israeli political leadership will dare to face them and get them out unless there is a pressure made on them from a third side, and we are only talking about the settlements and we didn’t even reach Jerusalem. But what would make a strong power such as the United States make pressure on Israel, where is the benefit? The benefit is to consider yourself really as the President of the Free world and show that it doesn’t matter if you are dealing with People who are black or white, or Jews or Muslims or Christians. What matters the most is to achieve what your political Program included “Peace and Democracy” The fair Peace but not the one side Peace. The benefit Mr. President is to prove that you are working upon the Democratic rules and you are using this power a great people gave you to make a change in the world because unless you do so or the one that comes after you does so, you will keep on losing the popularity as you already started to lose and your country too. Israel, the Palestinian Authorities, and President Bush declared that they are willing to reach a peace agreement until the end of the year 2008, What if they don’t? Will Olmert still have anything else to introduce to his people as a reason for him to stay as the Prime Minister after all of what he did in Lebanon War and the Palestinian conflict? And Abu Mazen how will he face others who are competing with him to prove for the Palestinians that their program is better and not the Peace Program. And you Mr. President Bush, how will you end your presidential period at the White House, and what will the history mention about you after all the Wars American went into without achieving anything in Fighting Terrorism and Extremists but indeed earning more Oil and Gaz for the Companies that you own, and also at the end gain another no change in the Middle East Peace that you promised the world of. 

Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad

A Palestinian-Arab living in East Jerusalem, Ziad graduated from College Des Freres in Jerusalem in 2003. Ziad finished his major in International Relations and English Literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ziad is a former President of the Watan student movement at the university. He is interested in Middle Eastern political issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Founder of the Middle East Post and MEL (Middle East Future Leadership Network), he represents Palestinian youth at several international conferences.

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