David Abrahams

About the Arab-Israeli conflict

Eight months of American direct engagement in the Arab-Israeli conflict have failed to revitalize a confidence building initiative between Israel, the Palestinians and surrounding Arab states. The current climate is one where the Shiite threat posed to Sunni regimes, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, prompted the latter to offer no criticism to Israel in its recent war against Hamas in Gaza. Thus rather than allowing various parties to their own devices, the Obama administration must take the initiative and forcefully establish the general parameters for a peace agreement.

By David Abrahams

As a strong believer in bottom-up changes, I think that in all aspects of our life, communal organizations achieve more than individual efforts; mutual respect between opponents feeds mutual flexibility and one's will to compromise one's opinions; and ongoing personal relationships blur ideological and historical gaps. Being a consistent advocate of the need to achieve peace in the Middle East, I think that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In other words: as long as extremists sow hatred and violence, and as long as mutual trust between Israeli and Palestinian societies is virtually non-existent - signed agreements will have no value.