A message from prince Hassan, late King Hussein's brother.

Waging war or winning peace
By HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal


Once again, the region rings with the all-too-familiar cries of hatred, anger, violence and bloodshed. It seems we have been rendered unable to disable violence whether the perpetrators be state or non-state players. Where is the voice of reason or the eye that sees beyond the immediate? Where is the ear that is prepared to listen?

Only last September, at the UN World Summit, world leaders agreed in a historic statement that states have a primary responsibility to act to protect their own populations and that the international community has a responsibility to act when these governments fail to protect the most vulnerable among us. Yet what we are witnessing today in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Iraq and in Afghanistan is no less than the punishment of the powerless, escalating humanitarian crises of mammoth proportions, coupled in Lebanon with the destruction of the very infrastructure of civilized existence.

We are a dishonest lot in the Middle East. Maddened by grievances real and perceived, each of us clamors to call for peace when we have all, through trauma and intransigence, become mesmerized by war. We may fool our media allies from far away, or fulfill the requirements of sloganeers who do not share our air and soil, but we know, you and I, that lasting peace will only come when we look each other in the eye and translate hatred into words that begin a difficult conversation.

The people of Israel have made an easy decision not to talk to extremists. Perhaps the bravest step is to engage with moderates and acknowledge that our troubled neighborhood needs the courage of compassion and the wisdom of longer-term self-interest to undo the damage of macho militarism. The gunfire around us makes it even harder to hear the voices of our marginalized communities.

Honesty is the only way to save our grandchildren from the fear and asphyxiation of hope, which we have all known for so long. Our clustered cities of Amman and Tel Aviv, Beirut and Damascus are too close to each other to avoid a tangled future. We, the Children of Abraham, may claim to look in different directions for culture and custom, spirituality and succor, but this small patch of scorched, embattled earth cannot be divided by fences and false borders of the mind. If the political play does not allow us to admit this to those whose map of our region is distorted by self-interest and misguided strategic obstinacy, then at least let us have the sense to admit it to each other.

Enlightened self-interest must compel us to foster human dignity and integrity by addressing the full spectrum of basic human rights, spanning from the rights of children to full respect for the rule of law on a national, regional and international level. The events of the past three weeks have brought us to the edge of the abyss. They are the result not of timeless and inevitable conflict, but of intransigence, fear and a shocking lack of creativity by leaders in our region and beyond. The indiscriminate loss of life on all sides has polarized our populations and shown diplomacy for the devalued and scorned art it has become. The focus on polemics and the ensuing escalation of violence has sidelined the very real and dangerous concerns that underlie our region's spiraling decline.

Aggressive ideology is nurtured by an increasing lack of economic equality, poor social mobility, a denial to many of human security, and the exclusion of the silenced majority. It is evident to us all that military might cannot cure the evils of our region. Violence begets violence, and the mass bombings of civilians can only result in increased use of terror tactics further down the line.

It has become exceedingly clear that the current crisis requires the application of a two-fold solution if we are ever to hope for a secure and stable peace for all our citizens. The conflicts that rule our daily lives must be addressed on the political level, but we cannot afford to ignore the effects of military overkill on basic humanitarian issues.

Human rights are the first casualties of war, and the degradation of human dignity in our region has undone generations of agreement and convention on the rights of civilians to protection and well-being. The anger and trauma created by hundreds of dead and injured and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians so far can only have violent repercussions for a hitherto democratic, pluralistic and multicultural Lebanon reality. The shockwaves are felt by our entire region.

A conference for security and cooperation in the region must be a priority for our leaders if human security is ever to become a reality. Diplomatic avenues must be opened and explored, and this arduous process should include Syria and Iran. War and it's tragic repercussions are inclusive of all; surely a model for peace should strive for such inclusiveness. In memory of my late brother, His Majesty King Hussein, and Yitzhak Rabin, we must strive not to wage wars, but to win peace. Real peace must be built; it is not just the absence of war. We need to talk about the end-game, to develop regional understanding, to address the energy issue that is at the heart of so much instability, and to devise a multilateral approach to such thorny issues as the proliferation of WMD, together with a regional concept for human rights, prosperity and security. Ideally, it could lead to a regional code of conduct and a cohesion fund that establishes principles of common interest, responsibility, transparency and a collective defense identity, reflecting the fact that interdependency is the reality today.

Anthrocentric policies, policies where people matter, is the way to close the human dignity divide. Through good governance, we must empower the poor and dispossessed who find expression for their frustrations in extremist ideology. The sooner a cessation of hostilities is achieved and international peacekeeping forces are deployed on both sides of the border, the sooner a collective strive toward institutionalized regional stability can begin. I cannot emphasize enough the need for diplomacy to transpose violence and this call echoes former U.S. president Eisenhower's appeal that the stable, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

The writer, brother of the late King Hussein of Jordan, is president of the Arab Thought Forum.