By Ramzy Baroud

The Arab and Muslim worlds are listed in American foreign policy as a part of a " Process".

The term "process" in American politics was effectively used by it’s inventor Henry Kissinger during his adventures in "shuttle diplomacy" to resolve the Egyptian-Israeli conflict in the mid 70’s. The use of this term has been widely associated with the word " Peace". Most of us, regardless of our stands on many of the political issues in the Middle East, repeat the term " Peace Process" with confidence. Since the establishment of civil societies, people are accustomed to resolve disputes or at least identify them with simple yet precise definitions. So they said, Peace vs War, Right vs Wrong, and Victim vs Aggressor.

" Peace Process", however, came as a savior and an excuse for those who refuse to accept the moral implications of their actions. Because in the "Peace Process", there is no guilty or innocent, there is no victim or victimizer.

The process of peace simply denies all of that and resorts only to dividing the disputes into categories and starting with the trivial ones. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian talks, Gaza-Jericho was agreed upon as a start, and all the real issues were left till the end of the process.

The moral dilemma here is; how can you engage two parties in peace talks while one holds all the cards, and the other is even denied holding an identity card?

The concept of "Peace Process" is an American invention created to get around the direct and clear resolutions of the United Nations without appearing as an imperialistic monster.

Once a weak nation gets involved in the so-called "process" the process will be the only hope that it has to achieve anything, perhaps even mere survival.

Take the case of Israel and the Palestinians once more. Israel could at any point reject any further involvement in this process. In fact, Israel did and will always threaten its withdrawal. For the Palestinians, it is not as easy of an option as it sounds. In the case of a poor and weak nation like that of the Palestinians, history is hard to reverse. No one will expect Arafat to take his men and women and search for a new front, in Syria, Lebanon or the Moon Islands, perhaps, to go back to the old "hit and run" strategy to fight the Israeli Occupation.

Who’s responsible for the abuse of weak nations? Its "The Process", of course.

In the old days, Palestinians had very specific demands, the implementation of the UN resolution so and so…end of the story. Nowadays, however, even Palestinians don’t know what their legal rights are. Some argue Oslo I. Others Oslo II, Cairo accords, Washington accords, Wye River etc…

And with each argument presented, Israel has a hundred counter arguments to oppose it.

Reality has changed for Palestinians without any serious gains. All of a sudden, the victimized Palestinians found themselves partners in a dispute where no one was held accountable, thanks to Kissinger and his "Process".

The term "process "which now has become a concept, is associated with other words besides peace. "Peace Process" was declared because it has a positive sound, even though it carries a hidden agenda that cannot be felt until later on in the "process" which may be too late.

"War" also is a process.

The United States found itself unable to escape a serious war and at the same time, found it impossible to handle and protect its interests in a civil manner.

As middle ground, it chooses to use the "middle war" or "the war process" to achieve it’s goals.

Americans don’t behave as if their army is engaging in a bloody war with Iraq, and that is the whole idea.

Through that process, the US government can achieve its goals without being pressured and being held accountable to its own people, like in the case of Vietnam.

At the same time, the sanctions and the continuous bombing is enough to protect US interests in the Middle East including the security of Israel.

As attractive as it may sound, neither the process of peace nor war is going to have long lasting effects. The two techniques are based on tricking certain groups to believe in things, which are not true. Such a trick could only go so far, but not far enough because nations, even poor ones have a given capacity to tolerate injustice.

One day, however, once they find that the process is not taking them anywhere, and even if they have no cards to play with, they could tip the whole table over onto the heads of the players.

For the poor it will not be a loss, because they never gained anything to begin with. The loss will come to those who had no respect for people’s rights.

For the fans of the "Peace Process" I only have one thing to say. You can process food, or a hard math problem, but you cannot process the people’s right to be free.