Vantage | Lesson from Israel war: Peace deals don’t guarantee peace, but they can

We don’t know how this war will end. Whether it will escalate even more or maybe spill over into other countries. But we can be sure of one thing. There are lessons here. Lessons for West Asia and the world. Peace deals aren’t about peace For starters, peace deals don’t guarantee peace. Certainly not the Arab-Israeli ones, or what we call the Abraham accords. You see, those were political deals. They weren’t about resolving the Palestinian question or forgetting the Arab-Israeli animosity. Those deals were about convenience. The likes of UAE and Bahrain wanted to cash in on Israel’s technology and economy. Likewise, Israel wanted recognition. It was never going to work.

The dispute between Israel and the Arabs was never about money or technology. It was about Palestine. Yet the peace deals never dealt with it. As a result, divisions festered underneath. Does that justify the attack? Of course not. Nothing can justify that sort of violence. But it does explain the attack. And this applies to many conflicts around the world. Take Ukraine, for example. In 2014, fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine. The Kyiv regime was on one side, Russian separatists were on the other. As the fighting raged on, talks were held. All stakeholders eventually signed the Minsk agreement. It talked about finding a permanent solution but the agreement itself wasn’t one. And now look at that conflict. It has escalated into a full-scale war. Another example is the Korean conflict. Both the Koreas fought a war from 1950 to 1953. They signed a ceasefire, but not a peace deal. And now look at them. Neighbours, but also sworn enemies. Serbia and Kosovo, same thing. Armenia and Azerbaijan, again, same. Closer home, you have India and Pakistan. These are all unfinished conflicts. They ended with deals or agreements that ignored the root problem. Whether it’s land, or race, or religion, that’s not what a peace deal means. A peace deal solves the problem, it doesn’t ignore it. So in the end, you have a very unstable situation. A peace deal, or something similar, on paper, but a volatile equation underneath. Power politics at play Do you know what makes it worse? Big power politics. Just consider the war here. Where did Hamas get thousands of rockets from? Chances are, Iran. And who gave them political support? Again, Iran. In the Korean peninsula, you have China. In eastern Ukraine, you had Russia. These are powerful countries. They can invest millions of dollars into conflict zones or send weapons and artillery. But who suffers in the end? The people who live there. The point is incomplete peace deals do not work. They only delay the inevitable. How to make it work So, what’s the solution? A comprehensive peace process. Not a sign-and-forget deal, but a process. In such a process, you address the root problems like old hostilities. Maybe through reparations or formal apologies. Then you address sectarian politics. You bring community leaders and politicians on the same page. You build trust. And finally, you control the flow of weapons and capital. Let’s face it, militants and terrorists thrive because they get support - foreign support. Whether it’s the Hamas in Gaza, or the mujahideen in Afghanistan or the contras in Nicaragua. Even countries for that matter, how did the likes of Pakistan and North Korea get nuclear weapons? With foreign help. And such weapons complicate matters even more. So, we need to eliminate outside factors like weapons and big power politics. We need Palestinians to speak for themselves, not via proxies or terrorists. And when they do, the other side needs to listen. That’s crucial too. If not, groups like Hamas will hijack the narrative. They will torpedo all hopes of peace. The bottomline is this: peace cannot be innovated or imposed, it has to be painstakingly built - with goodwill, with cooperation and with the hopes of the people in mind. Palestine and Israel never got that. They were pawns in a larger game. And now, those same larger powers are taking sides urging more violence and bloodshed. It’s not their people who suffer though, it’s the Israelis and the Palestinians. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.