In an op-ed published this weekend in the New York Times, Middle East scholar Ephraim Karsh touts a recent poll that found that 71 percent of Arabs are disinterested in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Karsh makes a great point– apathy towards the Palestinians has existed for decades and is only used by Arab leaders to strengthen their position back home. For example, Saddam Hussein expressed solidarity with the Palestinians to bolster his Islamic unity credentials in order to gain support from both Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims after he effectively ditched the tenets of the secular, socialist Ba’ath party.
Karsh writes:
“Against this backdrop, it is a positive sign that so many Arabs have apparently grown so apathetic about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For if the Arab regimes’ self-serving interventionism has denied Palestinians the right to determine their own fate, then the best, indeed only, hope of peace between Arabs and Israelis lies in rejecting the spurious link between this particular issue and other regional and global problems.
The sooner the Palestinians recognize that their cause is theirs alone, the sooner they are likely to make peace with the existence of the State of Israel and to understand the need for a negotiated settlement.”
Karsh is spot on, but he fails to explain in-depth another problem that is harming prospects for peace — apathy among Palestinians and Israelis themselves.
Palestinians are largely fed up with their leadership. Palestinian leaders have largely abused, oppressed and mistreated their people. The late Yasser Arafat stole millions of dollars in international aid, Mahmoud Abbas is failing to make a reasonable dent in the lives of Palestinians and Hamas oppresses the people of Gaza. There is little hope that the current leaders can bring about peace, which is pushing Palestinians into positions to try and survive day-to-day life and not focus on the larger issue of resolving the conflict. Think Maslov’s hierarchy of needs — there are far more pressing issues to deal with.
On the Israeli side of the equation, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have held summit after summit to reach an agreement, which ultimately falls through. Israelis are jaded and ignoring the peace problem that, to them, appears to have no end. Instead of exerting time and energy on the peace process, Israelis are concerned about their own lives, where they can actually have an impact.
The lack of concern with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Arab world, among Palestinians and in Israeli society has existed for decades, but it is also fueled by repeated failures that leaves participants complacent with the status quo to focus more on non-fatalistic endeavors.
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