Outlook grim for resolving West Asia conflict-report

By Staff
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JERUSALEM, Oct 5 (Reuters) The international community must try to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict to stop West Asia, already mired in its worst crisis in years, sliding further into turmoil, a respected think tank said today.

The International Crisis Group said the Lebanon war showed that as long as a comprehensive solution could not be found, the Arab-Israeli conflict would remain a ''bottomless source and pretext for repression, radicalisation and bloodletting''.

It said the United Nations, the European Union and the Arab world had to come up with fresh ideas in the face of reluctance from Israel and its main ally, the United States, to act boldly.

But the chances of success were slim, the report said.

''West Asia is immersed in its worst crisis in years,'' said the report from the Brussels-based group.

''Virtually all dynamics -- Palestinian disintegration and chaos, Israeli anxiety after the Lebanon war, the discrediting of pro-Western Arab governments, the absence of a credible US peacemaking role, the rise of militancy and Islamism and Iran's reater assertiveness -- point in the direction of conflict.'' Some world leaders have said the Lebanon war underscored the need for Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace talks to remove a major trigger for tensions.

The war was sparked when the Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla group, which closely identifies with the Palestinian struggle for an independent state, abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12. Fighting ended a month later.

The report said any mechanism for comprehensive talks needed to be realistic, such as beginning with a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians.

And the endgame must be clear from the outset: security and recognition for Israel within recognised borders and an end to occupation for the Palestinians and an independent state based on boundaries that existed before the 1967 West Asia war.

That political horizon would echo previous Israeli-Palestinian peace proposals.

But the report noted many obstacles.

The Palestinian polity, driven by a violent power struggle, was in disarray, it said. Israeli leaders were consumed by the army's failure to crush Hizbollah.

Meanwhile, Washington was preoccupied with Iraq and Iran's nuclear programme and was giving little sign of wanting to re-engage in the Arab-Israeli conflict despite a visit to the region by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week.

Arab-Israeli peace talks collapsed in 2000 before the start of a Palestinian uprising and hopes for a settlement dimmed further when the Hamas militant group, which is sworn to destroy Israel, took office last March.

The Crisis Group did, however, see a possible silver lining.

''The sense of fear, alarm even, about where developments might lead and the very real possibility of another Israeli-Arab war could inject a sense of urgency and induce parties to take a role they have been unwilling to take in the past,'' it said.

REUTERS PB PM1659

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