Arab regimes may have reconciled themselves to negotiating for negotiation's sake but it is not something with which the Arab public should have to live with s. Negotiations are a means towards an end, not an end in itself: if they fail to achieve their objective within a reasonable period of time they lose all value and become a burden, even more so when the phase in conflict management is twisted into an instrument for imposing new de facto realities that intensify and complicate the conflict rather than containing or alleviating it. When negotiations drag on unjustifiably and appear, as is the case in the Arab- Israeli conflict, like a wheel that is set to perpetually spin in place then what we have is something akin to a mirage, designed to lure the thirsty yet remain irrevocably distant.
The process that ostensibly aimed to resolve the Arab-Zionist conflict began in the immediate wake of the October 1973 War. It will soon be 35 years old. Even supposing that it only began seriously with the 1991 Madrid conference, i.e. when it became a collective process in which all Arab countries took part, it is still more than 15 years old. It is a long time for a negotiating process, though such a span of time could be tolerated should it offer a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Rather than light, though, negotiations have brought only dismay and an intensifying gloom, to the extent that many now believe there will not be a viable peace settlement should negotiations continue for a millennium or more.
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