A call for more world attention

February 4, 2008


A call for more world attention


UAE Vice-President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum has underlined the need for more international attention on the Palestinian problem in a meeting with Tony Blair, the special envoy of the international Quartet — the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.
The calls underlines the reality that even now the international community is not focused on the decades-old conflict that has seen tens of thousands being killed, maimed and detained and millions turned into refugees and displaced. Many reasons could be seen behind the apparent apathy towards the conflict, but standing out among them is the US approach which sidelines all other parties from playing any effective role in the quest for peace in Palestine. And that includes the powerful European Union to which Blair belongs and which is still playing only a peripheral political role in the search for peace.
Hopes that were raised at the Annapolis conference late last year are fading fast in the wake of the unexpected developments in Palestine in the last few weeks and indeed the persistent Israeli determination to have its own way in any move for making peace with the Palestinians.
Sheikh Mohammed also called on Blair, the former prime minister of Britain, to use his rich political experience and exert great efforts to solve the problem.
Indeed, Blair is the best qualified among Western leaders to head the effort for peace in Palestine, which Britain ruled for three decades under a League of Nations mandate. All British leaders have had close familiarity with the Palestinian problem, which owes its origins to the former colonial power's policy and actions in the early 1900s. By the same token, they could not but be aware that there could not any hope for peace in the Middle East without an equitable solution based on justice and fairness.
As such, Blair's reaffirmation is comforting. He said that he is working on narrowing the differences between the Palestinians and Israelis, to reach a just and honourable solution that would lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Blair has already shown that he is not confined to the American orbit in the context of the Palestinian problem by disagreeing with Washington's approach to the conflict. Hopefully, he would continue on the same path based on the understanding that the Palestinian people need all the help they could secure, given that their negotiating position is naturally weakened in view of Israel's physical control of the territories where they aspire to set up an independent state.
As Sheikh Mohammed underlined in his meeting with Blair on Sunday, the world needs to see the Palestinian cause as a just issue that deserves more attention from the United Nations and the major powers of the world with a view to achieving justice and equality for all the peoples in the region.