Find the solution in the roots of the problem

Read the transcript of Rami khouri's interview on 'Charlie Rose'
Read here about the Israel lobby.

A proposed solution for the Middle-East problem should always go back to the roots of the problem. Like Rami states in the interview, Hamas and HA did now come from the moon and you cannot, with the pressure from the US, implement the UN resolutions that you only like. When it comes to Lebanon, and with resistance groups like Hizballah that work based on an ideology more than the twisted diplomacy (and it should be noted that the ideology is not to destroy Israel as some people claim as much as it is to protect the rights of the Palestinians and the Lebanese), it becomes increasingly complicated and difficult when one wishes to seperate the Palestinian problem from the Lebanese problem.

My heart, my humanity and my Arabic national uprising does not allow me to forget the Palestinian problem and does not allow me to envision good relations with Israel as long as the Palestinians' rights continue to be undermined by Israel and the US (we all know that that's a huge understatement). This is the general feeling in the Arabic world today even within the countries that had signed and sustained a peace treaty with Israel. The difference though is that-and i'm talking pre-June war-i would not have advocated a continuous state of war with Israel for the Palestinian cause. Even when i feel this way, i cannot make that decision for all Lebanese and this is where the HA ideology fails.

This has been my conviction before June 12, 2006. What Israel did is that they increased the legitimacy of HA. It did so not only through renewing our feelings of insecurity but also through wrapping us again with the Palestinian cause indirectly through an overwhelming feeling of shared identity and suffering against an enemy that does not fail to use collective punishment methods as severe as those used on the Palestinians. They brought us back to the roots of the issue through reminding us that they remain the number one enemy for Arabs in the Middle-East.

After this war, i became more convinced that it the same cause and the same war. It is a war we keep fighting against the Israeli arrogance, expansion, aggression and complete disregard of the well being of its neighbors and the international laws. I became more convinced that a solution would only stem from a serious change in Israeli politics in the region and going back to the roots of the problem, not so much because we're stuck on the Palestinian cause (again even if i personnaly am), but because we fight the same aggressor.

So where are you on the peace talks?