Greetings to new Palestinian leadership

The new PA leader has more acceptability with the US and Israel, more than his predecessor ever had; being invited to the US soon after getting elected is an honour that his predecessor was hardly bestowed upon.

However, it would be well for the US and Israel to acknowledge the iconic status of Yasser Arafat amongst his fellow Palestinians. While it is convenient to make the late PA leader, cornered to the wall by the US-Israeli policy, the whipping boy for all the failure in effecting the 'road map' it has to be recognised that much of it had to do with the one-eyed view of the Arab-Israeli conflict that hitched the US on the side of Israel. And all this was based not so much on principle as on blatant self interest.

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It is our hope that real peace will come about with the new dispensation in the Palestinian Authority, a peace that will have universality in its meaning and application, a peace that must not be defined by the US and Israel only. The peace that everyone is looking for in the Middle East, we hope, will be just and fair for all the parties concerned and not predicated on the security of one country to the exclusion of the interest of Palestine. It is imperative for Israel to recognise and accept the Palestinians' minimum conditions for peace.

While Abbas has demonstrated his readiness to seek a fresh start towards the road to peace, there may be a limit to what and how he will be able to deliver. Thus, the US and Israel must realise that subjecting him under undue pressure to extract peace will not deliver peace in the region and certainly not security for Israel, the prime US interest in the Middle East.