Thumbs Up to Hilal Khashan

THUMBS UP to Hilal Khashan  in the June, 1995, Middle East Quarterly for his important article on Arab views of peace with Israel. A follow-up to his acclaimed March 1994 poll of Arab views, the current analysis reports marked increases in acceptance of peace negotiations with Israel. At the same time, high percentages of respondents shun interaction with Israelis and when asked “Would you continue to support peace if future geostrategy works against Israel?” 65% said they would not! Among the implications of the survey, according to Khashan, is the necessity of “political, economic and cultural association” as the basis of true peace. He notes that “The Arab continues to see Israel as an illegitimate creature, and so rejects all types of interaction with it.” Khashan’s survey indicates the most hostile attitudes toward Israel exist among Muslim fundamentalists and stresses that Arab states can only weaken this movement, which threatens them as well as Israel, by “tolerating pluralism” as part of establishing their own popular legitimacy. Khashan finds that “one of the major impediments to genuine peace is that the Arab mass media does not debate the issue; it simply condemns it outright.”

Comments are closed.