UN Chronicle | From the Secretary-General: 'What Is Missing, on Each Side, Is Trust in the Other'

From the Secretary-General
'What Is Missing, on Each Side, Is Trust in the Other'

Article

In just one week's time, we shall reach the twenty-fifth anniversary of President Anwar Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in 1977. Seldom has a political move deserved so richly to be called "historic". It caught the imagination of the world. It transformed the political landscape of the Middle East. And it defined Sadat as a historical figure.

President Sadat (of Egypt) showed courage, decisiveness and extraordinary political insight when he did what until then had seemed unthinkable for any Arab leader: he went to Jerusalem and declared, directly to the Israeli parliament and people, that "we welcome you among us with full security and safety". His visit represented an extraordinary leap of faith and imagination.

Alas, Sadat's journey also led, or at least contributed, to his untimely death. He himself must have known the risk he was taking, and that is the measure of his courage. Like Yitzhak Rabin fourteen years later, he paid the price of peace with his own life.

Looking at the Middle East peace process today, I wish I could say that those two sacrifices had brought a just, lasting and comprehensive peace to the Middle East, or at least that the leaders of today had shown a similar level of courage, vision and statesmanship. Sadly, I cannot. As we speak, Israelis and Palestinians are still locked in bitter conflict.

On both sides-Palestinian and Israeli-only those who believe their enemy can be defeated by force and violence show a grim confidence in the ultimate success of their chosen path. But on both sides, that confidence is surely misplaced.

Yet, all opinion polls concur: the majority of Palestinians accept the continued existence of Israel and are ready to live alongside it in their own State. And the majority of Israelis accept that peace requires the establishment of a Palestinian State in nearly all of the territory occupied in 1967.

What is missing, on each side, is trust in the other-and without that trust, the hope of peace becomes hard to sustain.

Somehow, we have to restore hope to both peoples, by patiently rebuilding their trust in each other. And that is what the Quartet of interested external parties-the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russian Federation-is seeking to do, by setting out a credible road map-a road map of synchronized steps that can lead, within three years, from the grim situation we are in now, to the peaceful two-State solution that the majority on both sides desire. This road map is being prepared with great care. It is now very nearly finalized.

We in the Quartet fully realize that the credibility of this road map will depend on performance. But performance in turn depends on hope. Without a clear promise of the end result, and visible political progress towards it, neither side is likely to summon the will to take the risks that each must take, right from the start, to improve the security and living conditions of the other. That is why we say that the process must be "hope-driven", as well as performance-driven.

And that, surely, is where all parties can learn from the example of Anwar Sadat.

By a leap of imagination, Sadat understood that, while Arabs felt oppressed by Israel's seemingly overwhelming strength, Israel felt threatened by the uniform hostility of the surrounding Arab world. More than anything, the Israeli people needed-and still need-the sense of being accepted by their neighbours, in order to find the courage to renew negotiations in good faith, despite all the traumas of the last two years, and to make the necessary concessions. In the stage the conflict has now reached, I believe both sides are aching for that sense of acceptance.

Many Palestinians, seeing the devastation Israel is able to inflict on their society, find it hard to imagine that Israelis also live in fear and that only by removing that fear can they hope to reach a new and more balanced relationship. Yet it is true.

And many Israelis believe they have already done enough to prove their willingness to accept Palestinians as neighbours, and allow them space in which to develop their national life. Unhappily, the life experience of many Palestinians has been very different, and Israel needs to do much more to win their trust. As long as the settlement building and land confiscation continue, as long as a political horizon is missing, as long as there is no real commitment to negotiate the remaining final status issues, Palestinians will never be convinced of Israel's desire for peace. That may be hard for Israelis to believe. Yet it is true.

The international community stands ready to help. Indeed, we must help both Israelis and Palestinians to break through the barrier of which Sadat spoke: "a barrier of suspicion, a barrier of rejection, a barrier of fear, of deception, a barrier of hallucination … a barrier of distorted interpretation of every event and statement".

But we can only help those who are willing to be helped.

What is needed on both sides is true leadership, such as Anwar Sadat provided in his time. Let us pray that they find it before it is too late.

This article is excerpted from the "Anwar Sadat Memorial Lecture", given by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 13 November 2002 at the University of Maryland.

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