The American and Israeli governments' failure to work out a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, despite considerable public opinion that favours peace, is fueling doubts about the utility of democracy in resolving crises, say experts in the region.
Recent opinion polls in the United States, Europe, and even Israel, show growing support for a Palestinian state despite the continued violence by militants and suicide attacks as well as Israeli attacks in the occupied territories — but the governments' action have done little to reflect the people's voices.
A CNN/ USA Today /Gallup Poll conducted late last month suggested that 43 percent of the respondents felt that the United States — the main peace broker in the Middle East — supports Israel too much, the first such demonstration of support for the Palestinians in a long time.
Gallup characterised the response as ''a significant decline in a pro-Israeli point of view,'' compared with 29 percent in mid-2001.
Sept 11 link
''US President George W Bush has floated the statehood plan, but wants a leadership change. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is willing to negotiate but only after there is a complete end to violence and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is replaced. And Europeans have nothing more than lip sympathy to offer. And they are all democracies,'' says Dr Ali Ahmed Al Ghafli of Sharjah University.
''But Americans, as opposed to the government, have become more conscious of what the Israelis are doing in the occupied territories,'' he adds.
''People in the United States understand that the Sept 11 attacks are connected to the Middle East crisis. While encouraging the anti-terror war, the change in the public mood indicates that they want the Palestinian question resolved to avoid a repeat of the tragedy that killed 3,000 people in the one-day triple attack,'' explains Ghafli.
If American public opinion is showing possible signs of change, British polls indicate more sympathy for Palestinians.
In April, Britain's Guardian newspaper found that support for Palestinians was nearly double (60 percent) compared with that given to Israelis. The findings are in line with recent polls in France, Germany and Italy.
Israel is to blame
Some Israeli poll results are actually closer to European public opinion. A majority of Israelis support the creation of a Palestinian state, according to reports about a Gallup poll carried by the Ma'ariv newspaper. The poll, conducted eight months ago, showed that 59 percent of Israelis support the creation of a Palestinian state.
Last week, Israel's Peace Now movement presented a study of the attitudes of the Jewish settlers in the occupied territories toward a possible Israeli withdrawal from the area. It revealed that the overwhelming majority (68 percent) of the settlers would be prepared to obey a government decision to evacuate them.
The findings also showed that the Israeli government has no grounds to blame the settlers for the lack of progress in peace talks with the Palestinians — and that Israel itself is to blame for the failure to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians.
Explaining the psyche of the Jewish people, Israeli analyst Uri Avnery wrote in Ma'ariv : ''Israel is the only state in the world that has a population of 200 percent,'' having 100 percent backing peace initiatives and the other 100 percent backing Sharon's hardline policies.
This is the case, he says, because public opinion polls in Israel show that it has two simultaneous majorities. One is peace-loving, the other supports extreme nationalism.
Better public understanding
But, Avnery adds, ''In all seriousness, Israeli public opinion is difficult to measure as voters are extremely volatile. Israelis veer from fury to pragmatism with every suicide bombing or peace rally.''
Mohammed al Ghobaisi, a political science researcher in the Emirates University, agrees that reading public attitudes is not always easy. ''There's a vast difference between public opinion for peace and public opinion for an agreement to settle territorial disputes,'' he says.
''Peace is appealing in the face of violence, but when it needs to be sealed through territorial concession, people step back,'' Ghobaisi explains.
But Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian pollster, wrote in The Gulf Today last week that Israeli public opinion has emerged from periods of regression to a better understanding of what is necessary for peace.
''Western public opinion and their governments' responses is not as vital as the public opinion and the government responses of the Palestinians and the Israelis,'' Khatib says.
Some Americans living here say that American public opinion may be changing and going against US government policies, just as Americans were against the Vietnam War more than three decades ago.
''It may not be long before we hear such voices and see such rallies against US role in the Middle East,'' suggests Patrick Anderson, an American working in a public relations firm in the UAE.
Bad news
But Ghobaisi says: ''For now, it is a shame that the 'greatest democracy in the world' ignores multilateral laws and procedures and goes its own unilateral way. What percentage of the public in any democracy will accept overthrowing of any leader by force? But the US government is trying to unseat three leaders — Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Arafat and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez — at one time.''
Ghobaisi faults what he says is the US and Israeli governments' painting of the Palestinians as the aggressors in the Middle East conflict and the Israelis as the aggrieved, when both sides have suffered since the current intifadah (uprising) began in September 2000.
''But that's democracy in the 21st century. Governments are receptive to the public only in so far as getting elected. Beyond that it is the will of the politicians in power and the government over that of the people,'' Ghobaisi adds.
Rafat Khader, a Palestinian student at the UAE University, says: ''The Israelis are bad publicity for themselves. In this age of television, the Israeli atrocities are being beamed into every drawing room across of the world. It is not surprising that the public opinion is tilting in favour of the Palestinians.''
But Ghassan al Jashi, political analyst for the Al Itihaad newspaper, is more realistic: ''If the good news is that public support for Palestinians is growing all over the world, the bad news is that the governments don't seem to be paying any attention to the people's opinion.''
''Until that changes, not only will the Middle East crisis be prolonged, but the credibility of the discourse of democracy too will suffer,'' he says. — IPS
