Tuesday’s column by Mac VerStandig, entitled “Two Roads Diverged … ,” unfairly lays blame for the failure of the peace process and the ongoing bloodshed solely on the Palestinians. The piece focuses on Palestinian crimes against Israelis and completely ignores well-documented Israeli violations of and contempt for international law and human rights, including forced removal of Palestinians from their homes and land, razing of villages, collective punishment, mass arrests, torture of prisoners, confiscation of land and a brutal occupation.

I point these out not to keep tabs of who did more violence to the other, because both sides have innocents’ blood on their hands and keeping score is also a large part of the problem and an obstacle to moving forward with the peace process. I say it only to make the point that placing total blame on one side of any conflict, as the editorial does, is always suspect.

The truth is that the Palestinian National Authority has been corrupt and did not abandon violent struggle against Israel after its leaders announced they would seek a settlement through peace negotiations and even signed peace accords with Israel. But Israel is equally to blame for the failure of the peace process.

Shortly after Oslo and Madrid, it violated the ground rules of the understanding and closed off the Palestinian territories, restricted movement of Palestinians even between their own towns and villages, cut Jerusalem off from the West Bank, expanded illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories (land which was to be part of a future Palestinian state) and dragged its feet on withdrawing its forces and ending the occupation. It also kept delaying final status negotiations dealing with Jerusalem, borders, refugees and water rights.

And while former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak of the Labor Party at first seems more conciliatory, his offer at Camp David in July 2000 was not as “sweet” as it has been portrayed by the United States, the media and Israel’s supporters. According to Rashid Khalidi, director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, in his recent book, “Resurrecting Empire”, Barak made a “stingy take-it-or leave-it offer to Arafat that was predictably rejected.”

It was also a stiff concession: “The offer, which would have divided the West Bank into three disconnected segments, and gave Israel complete control over the borders of a state that would thereby have been much less than sovereign, was ludicrously described in the ensuing mythology that grew up around Camp David as ‘generous.'”

Barak pushed for a summit on critical and complicated final status issues, almost overnight after Israel had resisted such discussions for so long, when the details had not been worked out, a must before any summit.

Likud prime ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon likewise share blame, for both opposed Oslo and Madrid from the beginning and gave only lip service to ending the conflict peacefully. And since 2000, the neoconservatives in the Bush administration embraced the hard-line Likud position, opting not for negotiations to end the conflict, but for the use of force against the Palestinians and rejecting the idea of a Palestinian state.

Furthermore, the fact that Arafat and other PNA officials are corrupt and incompetent leaders who are guilty of violence against Israeli civilians and the fact that Arab countries refused to take in the Palestinians who were displaced by Jews and later by the Israelis, are not valid arguments against recognizing the nationalistic aspirations of and granting the Palestinians an independent state with attendant political and civil rights. These circumstances only prove that the Palestinian people have been, and are still being, victimized by both Arab leaders and Israel, making it an even greater imperative to address their grievances, alleviate their suffering and grant them independence.

The piece also attempts to discredit Palestinians’ historical claims to the land of Palestine and even denies the existence of a Palestinian people. But these arguments have long been abandoned even by most Israelis and their government and reflect more the idea of Israel’s supporters in the United States, particularly the Christian right (hence the editorial’s use of the Biblical term “Israelite”), who are far removed from the realities on that ground. It is reminiscent of the days when the Palestinians and all the Arab countries denied the existence of Israel. Neither point is useful in discussing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as it exists today.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders must take bold actions for peace. Both have failed miserably. The United States must aggressively seek a resolution of the impasse in order to bring some stability to a region vital to our interests. The United States must become an active partner and take a fair and evenhanded approach and must stop giving Israel unequivocal and unqualified support, with impunity, even when Israel acts contrary to U.S. interests, and criticizing and blaming only the Palestinians and punishing their leaders for their misdeeds. An honest broker must have credibility.

Natalie J. Mikhail ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism and international studies.