Seasoned with Salt

Middle East Negotiations

The world watches tbe situation in the Middle East with bated breath. While the Palestinians, led by Yassir Arafat, long for a place to call their own homeland. Israel is concerned that ceding control of portions of her tiny land mass may leave her nation more vulnerable to attack, and her people who live in the West Bank subject to violence and intimidation. Both sides want peace, but not "peace at any price."

When I visited Israel a year ago, the tour guide took me up to the Golan Heights, an Israeli-occupied territory that was part of Syria until the Six-Day War of 1967. From Golan, directly across the Sea of Galilee from Israel, Syria had shelled Israel cities prior to that War. It is difficult to defend Israel from hostile neighbors, with over 90% of the Jewish population concentrated in cities within a small land area. Many in Israel believe that the sparsely populated Golan Heights must remain under Israeli control, as a buffer against Syria.

Today, Israel is on the brink of ceding a portion of the West Bank to the PLO. The West Bank is 6,000 square miles of land situated west of the Jordan River, including part of Jerusalem, which Israel took from Jordan in 1967 and began to settle in 1979. While many Israelis agree that an independent Palestinian state is inevitable, they do not trust the PLO to guarantee the safety of Jews who live within the borders of a Palestinian state. Recent violence on both sides reinforces the feelings that peace talks ought to proceed slowly at best.

During that same trip to Israel, I also had opportunity to speak with Palestinians. Many Palestinians were displaced when the modern nation of Israel was formed in 1948. They fear being pushed out again, with nowhere to go. Politics aside, they are a people who want the same things as their Jewish neighbors: a place to live in peace and raise their families in security.

As our nation engages both sides in diplomacy, we must not lose sight of three important factors: First of all, the hostility between Israel and its Arab neighbors was many centuries in the making, and will not disappear overnight with a few smiles at state dinners. Second, whatever political decisions are made will affect real people with real families. Third, in the Middle East, the United States has had but one loyal, steadfast ally for the past 50 years, and that is Israel. In the interest of "peace, peace," we must not try to bully a longstanding ally into accepting a peace agreement with which she is uncomfortable.

The only lasting peace can come from knowing the one and only Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

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