‘Relevance of global diplomacy at stake as regional bloodshed continues’

DEAD SEA — The terrorism and bloodshed of the 21 century have prompted people to question the relevance of regional and global diplomacy, politicians and experts have agreed at the Annual Harvard Arab World Conference.  

Providing equality-based citizenship to people, building institutions to counter extremism and engaging citizens in decision making are the first steps towards unity and progress, participants said at the conference, organised by the Harvard Arab Alumni Association at the Dead Sea on Saturday. 

Highlighting the lengthy ongoing Arab-Israeli negotiations, Nabil Sharif, former minister of state for media affairs, said that some recent studies had suggested that the peace process was actually detrimental to Palestinian ambitions for statehood. 

 “The most critical political crisis is the Syrian situation, with issues of security and migration remaining at the forefront of global issues,” he added.

“The Syrian refugee crisis has been dubbed as the world’s worst refugee crisis since World War II. Yet, the West is closing the doors due to fear of violence and xenophobia… the recent Trump ban represents a new stage in American politics,” Sharif explained.

Lakhdar Brahimi, former Algerian foreign minister and veteran UN diplomat, spoke of the different dynamics, impacts and outcomes of North Africa’s revolutions and uprisings.

Turning his attention to Syria, he said one positive outcome of Russian intervention in Syria was that it ensured the unity of the country, instead of “dividing it into 20 entities and states”.

Former Jordanian foreign minister Marwan Muasher, vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the future of peace talks and diplomacy on the Palestinian statehood will be achieved by “implementing the two-state solution”, although it might not be “the most preferable outcome”.

“In the absence of a military solution, diplomacy was the only discourse to thrive. However, one cannot just keep time to the Oslo process and implement what might have worked 20 years ago,” Muasher added.

 “The world has changed, the Arab-Israeli conflict has changed, the government has changed, the Palestinians have changed inside the occupied territories,” he continued.

Muasher also noted that “the demographics on the ground have changed”, referring to the growing number of illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 

He also argued that there is a “disinterest in a two-state solution” among young people in the Arab world.

“They will tell you: you are offering us a two-state solution without East Jerusalem, without the Jordan Valley, without the right of return,” the former minister argued. 

The argument also shifted within the Palestinian society, Muasher explained, from one that focused on the shape of the outcome, to one that now focuses on Palestinian civil and political rights.

“[Palestinian youths say] we don’t care about what the solution will look like in the end, as long as we focus on what we can affect, how to work for more political and civil rights and to raise the cost of the occupation for the Israelis,” he said. 

Potential courses of action include intensifying the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and taking Israel to the International Criminal Court, Muasher noted.

He added that possible solutions will constantly be changing, especially given the policies of US President Donald Trump and of the Israeli government, which “stated clearly it was not interested in the two-state solution, at least the kind Palestinians aspire for”.

Aref Nayed, former Libyan ambassador to the UAE, said that extremist ideologies can be challenged by “creating a counter narrative to hatred and extremism”, and by promoting religious, interfaith and regional diplomacy. 

“In 2004, Jordan initiated the Amman Message, saying we wouldn’t have the inter-sectarian violence today and the world listened,” he said at the diplomacy panel.

Brahimi stressed the need to voice recommitment to the rights of the Palestinian people and their right to regain their lost land.

Defending the rights of Palestinians must be done through campaigns like BDS, he said, in order to connect movements of solidarity inside and outside of Palestine.

“Palestinians have every single right in the world to fight for their rights. If we don’t help them fight through peaceful means, they have every right to [use] violence,” Brahimi added.