A Strategy for Peace in the Middle East

Shimon Peres

From Foreign Affairs, Spring 1980

Article preview: first 500 of 6,255 words total.

Summary:  The olive tree, the oldest tree in the world, whose leaves form the symbol of peace, grows in the Middle East. Also to be found there is a concentration of the most modern weaponry of our epoch, weapons being used right now in warfare.

Shimon Peres is Chairman of the Labor Party of Israel. He is the author of Tomorrow is Now, From These Men, and David's Sling.

The olive tree, the oldest tree in the world, whose leaves form the symbol of peace, grows in the Middle East. Also to be found there is a concentration of the most modern weaponry of our epoch, weapons being used right now in warfare.

Peace, like a tree, is a process of growth; it demands great patience, continuous nurturing and the surmounting of many obstacles. Enmity, on the other hand, like a storm brewing, can emerge unannounced. The Middle East is diverse enough to harbor the two processes at one and the same time, and it remains sufficiently magical to attract the opposing forces in the world in the spheres of ideology, strategy and energy.

Important mutations have, nevertheless, occurred, introducing an entirely new situation. One is the change that has occurred in geopolitical priorities: it is the Persian Gulf, a region of about 400 kilometers square, that has taken importance over the warm water of the Mediterranean. Control of the oil and water of the Persian Gulf has a critical influence on the economy of the free world-on the price of gasoline in the United States, on Europe's economic condition, in determining Japan's ability to function-while the Strait of Hormuz has become more of a temptation for the U.S.S.R. than the Mediterranean basin. Energy has become more important than geography.

The Persian Gulf is populated by Muslim states ruled by kings, sheikhs and generals. Not a single Gulf state can be certain of its stability, and almost all are caught up in the contradictory processes of precipitate enrichment and swift modernization on the one hand, and of political backwardness and fragile social structure on the other.

For the first time in the second half of the twentieth century-and this is another change-one of the most important states of the region, Iran, has been captured by a fanatical religious preacher: Ayatollah Khomeini. Employing the most modern means of communication, with cassettes and television cameras, religious fanaticism, resembling the uncompromising spirit of medieval times, has been resurrected. It has a magnetism of instant "purification and catharsis" and the brutal romanticism of the communist revolution; but this time, as extra insurance, it has the Almighty as well on its side. What will draw young people more-the call of Khomeini's slogans or the promise of progress which, for example, the Saudi kingdom has embarked on? It is too early to answer this question with any certainty. But it must be recognized that the question is a totally new one, of a threatening nature for all the states in the region.

II

The Soviet penetration into the Middle East which began about a quarter of a century ago, riding on the back of the double-humped camel-the Arab-Israeli conflict and nationalist and social unrest-has been extended and augmented. Now it appears to be a comprehensive strategy employing a variety of tactics and not just an improvisation by rival Kremlin forces-apparently the Navy now has a strong voice, an innovation for the land-oriented Russians.

The ...

End of preview: first 500 of 6,255 words total.