A global trek with view from Tech

As Israel’s Jewish population celebrated its holiest holiday 30 years ago, Egypt and Syria launched an unanticipated invasion of the Jewish state. Though surprised, Israeli forces repelled the attack and advanced into Syria by the time a cease-fire ended the conflict.

On Monday, as Jews around the world again celebrated Yom Kippur, Israel’s forces crossed into Syrian territory, using F-16 jets to bomb what its government called a terrorist training camp. Syrian officials, of course, claim the site was merely a refugee camp and nothing more.

Regardless of the target’s legitimacy, and whether the killing of 19 civilians by a Palestinian suicide bomber the previous week justified the strike, its occurrence leaves the latest hope for Israeli-Palestinian peace derailed.

Events of the previous weeks already had made the so-called “road map” backed by the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia look like a dead-end street. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas resigned. Israeli cabinet members openly talked about expelling or eliminating Palestinian President Yassar Arafat. Palestinian terrorist groups restarted their violent activities. And Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has continued to build a security wall and settlements through disputed parts of the West Bank.

With this latest event, not only is the “road map” in jeopardy, but the stability of the entire region also remains questionable. Peace looks to be again delayed, if not entirely unattainable. In looking at history, however, one flicker of hope remains.Just five years after it invaded Israel, Egypt made peace with the state and normalized relations with it in the Camp David Accords, the 25th anniversary of which was celebrated just a few short weeks ago.

On the afternoon of September 17, 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the blueprint for the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab nation. Engineered by Institute alumnus and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, the treaty remains intact today, and, according to Carter, neither side has violated a word of it.

How, just five years after violent conflict occurred between these two bitter rivals, did a nuclear engineer turned peanut farmer turned politician from Plains, Georgia mediate such a peace? And how could the lessons from that success translate into peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians today?

“With strong leadership, determined mediation that’s trusted, a balanced role between Israel and the Palestinians and good faith, I believe we could still see peace in the Middle East in our lifetime,” said Carter on the anniversary of the Accords.

These prerequisites to peace stated by Carter on the anniversary were present when Sadat and Begin forged the Camp David peace, but none exist today as we examine the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Neither side is willing to compromise and negotiate to obtain peace, and even if the two sides somehow made it to the negotiating table, it is unlikely that either would adequately trust the other to pursue successful talks.

Furthermore, in casting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as part of the global war on terrorism rather than as a battle for land and legitimacy as it has often been viewed, the Bush administration abandoned its ability to act as a neutral arbiter in the conflict.

When combined with the administration’s doctrine of pre-emptive strike, Israel now finds itself with considerable room to operate.

Still, the Camp David experience reminds us that we cannot allow the perceived hopelessness of today be an excuse for failing to act.

Georgia Tech students can relate better than most to this type of issue. As engineers, (and by the way, I consider everyone at Tech a quasi-engineer, or at the least an analytical problem solver) we can often see a problem’s solution and what we need to arrive at it before we actually see the process by which we will reach it. We start working, start over, and then restart again-each time proceeding with a sense of hope that this latest attempt will be the one that finds success. So goes the craft of engineering.

Regardless of whether or not Carter was thinking like an engineer when he initiated the Camp David Accords, this type of thinking is exactly what the current standstill requires and exactly the type of thinking that members of the Tech community employ. Hopefully the situation can be resolved before we current undergraduates would be in the position to aid in crafting the peace process, but if it persists, we will be ready.