Within every disagreement, there are at least two or three main subjects that constitute the core or the essence of this insolvable issue. Along with these main subjects, there are auxiliary issues that can also be called “daily” problems. In other words, while everyone keeps in mind the main themes that have caused the conflict, they also have to take care of the auxiliary aspects and arrange their daily actions and policies according to them. As a result, sometimes these secondary issues start to come to the forefront too much and they become one of the main reasons for the conflict’s longevity.As in the Palestine-Israel problem, where secondary issues have become vital problems, where the societies in conflict have in mind only how to destroy each other and where they have created a game in which there will never be a winner. When this game, in which no one has the upper hand and no one sees the end of the conflict, started to damage the whole region and the global balance of power, the system’s main players stepped into it. Many of these kinds of problems necessitate such an “external” influence, like in Cyprus for example, where the UN’s intervention was followed by that of the European Union and then the US.
There were also periods during which these problems were deliberately left without a settlement in order to justify frequent “foreign” interventions. Without the ongoing problem in Cyprus, what pretext would the Soviet Union use to support Archbishop Makarios and his successors? Without the Palestinian or Kurdish problems, how could Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) get the Eastern Bloc’s financial and material help? However, it seems difficult nowadays to explain everything in this manner. It’s not easy to claim that the major powers are using regional conflicts just because they want to keep open the option of intervening in certain strategic regions, because nowadays, these chronic problems are directly hurting the great powers, too. So they are now using sanctions not in order to enflame these conflicts but to incite their pacific resolution. That’s why the US administration insists on reaching a “two-state solution” for Palestine and declares this issue a major priority of its foreign policy.
Many people would say that it’s a vain attempt to expect the US to mediate peace between the Israelis and Palestinians because Washington has always given the impression of being too much on the Israelis’ side and that’s why it cannot convince the Arab world that it is an impartial and objective mediator. But here is the other side of the coin: the US is the only country in the world that has the capacity and power to persuade Israel to negotiate and to renounce its violent way of behaving. To persuade Israel, the US can use coercive methods and mini-threats, as it is the only actor capable of doing so. The US can also play a major role in helping both sides weed out the secondary issues in order to make way for the discussion of “real” issues. However, history is quite instructive about the fact that the US’s solitary mediation is not sufficient at all. An international atmosphere allowing pressure on both sides of this complicated issue is necessary, and there is a particular need for actors that have considerable leverage over the Palestinians to push the peace process forward.
