Tit for tat, yes but not forever

THE Palestinians are clearly forgetful people, so Avi Pasner’s taskis probably hopeless. The Israeli government spokesman said after lastThursday’s massacre of Israelis at a bat mitzvah (coming of age) party in Hadera that “we are going to teach the Palestinian Authority a lesson they will not forget” — but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been administering these lessons’ to the Palestinians for over forty years now with no result.The tit-for-tat vendetta that the Palestinians call ‘the intifada’ and the Israelis call ‘terrorism’ has killed just over 800 people in the past 16 months, but it blights ten thousand lives for every one it takes. Two whole communities are forced to live in perpetual fear andanger, and the instinct for retaliation is so deeply entrenched that it’s hard to believe it could ever stop.Abed Hassouna, the youth who shot up the reception hall, was takingrevenge for last week’s killing of Raed Karmi, one of the leaders of theal-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, by a bomb planted by an Israeli governmentassassination squad. They were taking revenge for various killings that they believed Karmi had committed (they’d already tried to get him with arocket fired from a helicopter a couple of months ago, but only killed thepassengers in his car), and he no doubt had deaths to avenge as well.“And so the wheel turns,” as an Israeli soldier wearily said to me 20 years ago during the invasion of Lebanon. That war lasted for 18 years in one form or another, taking lives every month, before Israel pulled back to its own border. But it did end eventually, and thisconflict can too.There is an example unfolding right now of how a long and bitter struggle can end, right in the region. It is in Cyprus, where the partition took place only 28 years ago, not 54 years ago, and where there hasn’t been any fighting for a long time now. But it is still a highly relevant example.In both cases, it was Muslims versus non-Muslims in a formerBritish colony, though in Cyprus the non-Muslims are Christian Greeks while in the Israel-Palestine area they are Jewish Israelis. In both cases the non-Muslims greatly out-number and out-gun their Muslim adversaries, who do not even control a legally recognised state. But both Muslim minoritieshave much more powerful friends in the region: Turkey for the Turkish-Cypriots and the adjacent Arab states for the Palestinians.This is a formula for stalemate and, ultimately, tit-for-tat murder and massacre, which is what both places have seen for longish stretches of time. At the time, it’s hard to believe that it can ever end — but it may be ending now in Cyprus.As the bat mitzvah guests were dying in Hadera, two old men (joint age 159) were meeting in Nicosia’s abandoned airport in the front-line ‘dead zone’ that divides the Cypriot capital and the whole island. Greek-Cypriot leader Glafkos Clerides and Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash have known each other since they first squared off against each other in thethen-British colony’s courts in 1950, and they haven’t much time left. Clerides will retire next year, and Denktash is seriously ill with diabetes.It’s not just two old men in a hurry who make this umpteenth round of talks about Cyprus so hopeful, however. It is the imminent prospect of Cyprus joining the European Union (final negotiations start this December) that has finally provided what may be the right incentive: the Greek-Cypriots want in because it will bring them greater prosperity, and the Turkish-Cypriots want in because it will save them from great economic misery. The problems are just as thorny as in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and success is not guaranteed. Where should the boundaries run? How many refugees can return? How is mutual security to be guaranteed? But there is a message here for those who are tempted by despair. When the conditions are right, a deal becomes possible. What are the right conditions? For Cyprus, they include 20 years with virtually no shooting, a rather more equal balance of power on the ground than prevails on the Israeli-Palestinian front, a more even-handed approach by outside powers, especially the United States — and some really big incentive for compromise. So the Israelis and Palestinians will still have to wait for a while (and some more of them will die). But it can be done there too. Sooner or later, it probably will be done.Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist