Wednesday, 05 February 2014 19:23

Interview with Walid Salem: Thinking over the Middle East

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The first question is a traditional one for these series: How would you characterize the past decade for the Middle East?

In the past decade, the Middle East has clearly gone through many phases that have shaped the current geopolitical and sociopolitical situation in the Middle East. The most important and significant factor that brought change was of course the Arab Spring. As a result, the whole prism through which the Middle East was viewed has been altered. No longer do the "conventional" political structures remain confident, since the public's voice has gained massive influence. With that change, also comes different state-to-state relations in the region, and how strategies have been formulated. In short, while the Middle East a decade ago was a more rigid framework of politics, today's wave of change has on one hand given it more instability but on the other hand enough space to bring forth sociopolitical progress and security for the entire region.

 

What are the prospects of Arab-Israeli conflict in the current circumstances?

How has the Arab Spring influenced the conflict? It might have been the case that Israel felt isolated from the rest of the region for the obvious reasons, but with the eruption of the Arab Spring, Israel has felt itself closer to the region than it perhaps wants to. First off, the negative consequences of the Arab Spring have been felt in Israel, especially with the civil war in Syria and the political unrest of Egypt.Yet regardless of the situation, the Arab world was able to hold two Arab summits (in one of which the new Libyan government gave their support to the API). Moreover, the API Follow Up Committee headed by Kuwait has met with Kerry at least 5 times. And in this new framework of state interactions, Israel and the world has become aware that the Arab-Israeli conflict needs a solution that is complimented by a regional envelope. This is why we see the current Kerry Initiative having a layer of "regionality" with the Arab League playing a supportive role to the negotiations.

What is a role of civil society in the conflict regulation? Does its role and influence rise or decline?

There is a wide perception that civil society's role ends when there is an agreement. However that is quite incorrect, since civil society must not only work for an agreement but also double its efforts after an agreement is signed, since then it will be the real test to maintain and expand the promise of mutual understanding and cooperation between societies/communities/ and polities. For now, as the negotiations go on, the civil socities on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides have been working hard to spread and sow the seeds of positive peace among the peoples of both societies. This also includes frequent meetings with decision-makers to exchange ideas of how to proceed with peace talks.

What are the three key trends from your point of view that will dominate the international relations in the Middle East this 2014 year?

A. It is safe to say that the international community has understood that the "seperate" problems of any Middle East country must not been seen in an individual manner but in a collective regional approach. And so, the international community will further adopt this regional approach when it interacts with the Middle East.

B. The Israeli-Palestinian will still have a significant attention of the world, as recent remarks by the EU and Secretary John Kerry have indicated the negative ramifications a failure of talks will have not only to Palestine's struggle for nationhood but also to Israel's relations with the world. To contain any failure and its implications will be considered heavily by the international community.

C. The war in Syria and the instability in Egypt will not go missed by the international community's interaction with the Middle East. In order to have a stable region that can be approached comprehensively, the international community will certainly make attempts to limit the negative consequences of Syria and Egypt not to spillover into the rest of the region.

Read 11090 times Last modified on Sunday, 15 March 2015 12:46
Walid Salem

Walid Salem is a Member in the Palestinian National Council of PLO, teaching democracy and human rights at AlQuds University. He is a writer of thirty books and training manuals, and tens of research papers on Democracy, civil society, citizenship, refugees, and Jerusalem.