To be a moderate in the Arab world today sometimes feels like an act of courage, and other times like a leap of faith. Sometimes, it's just plain suicidal. And yet, there has never been a time when moderation is more needed in the region than now.
Although Westerners looking at the Arab world tend to focus on its extremists, Arab moderates do exist, and they have -- at least with regard to the Arab-Israeli peace process -- put a number of initiatives on the table (including the Arab peace initiative first floated by the Saudis in 2002 and the Middle East road map of 2003, which was originally proposed by Jordan). To do so, they have to fight against much more radical positions within the Arab world, and in several cases, they have prevailed.
Yet today, Arab moderation is at risk as radical forces gain strength throughout the region, marketing a dark vision of the future. Al Qaeda is growing stronger rather than weaker; Hamas has taken over from Fatah in the Palestinian territories. The favorability of the United States has been extremely low throughout the region since the beginning of the Iraq war.
There is no doubt that the failure of the peace process to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has strengthened the argument of the radicals: that violence is necessary because the moderate path has not worked. If there is any suggestion I would offer to the incoming U.S. administration, it is to take on the issue of Israel and the Palestinians aggressively in its first term and to abandon any further attempts at a gradual approach to solve the conflict. A gradual process of confidence-building -- which was the theory behind the Oslo peace process in the 1990s -- has exhausted its possibilities and has given detractors of peace too much time to operate.
Fortunately, the parameters of a solution are today known to all, a result of previous negotiations and frameworks arrived at by the parties themselves. What is needed is the political will of the new U.S. administration, perhaps in collaboration with the United Nations, the Russians and the Europeans, to make it happen.
There is nothing more the international community can do to help Arab moderates than this. Time is not on the side of moderation. If the new U.S. administration dawdles, hopes for a two-state solution will quickly fade, with disastrous results.
