End Of The Peace Process

Soon after the Oslo accords were signed in September 1993 by Israel and Palestinian Liberation Organization, Edward Said predicted that they could not lead to real peace. In these essays, most written for Arab and European newspapers, Said uncovers the political mechanism that advertises reconciliation in the Middle East while keeping peace out of the picture. Said argues that the imbalance in power that forces Palestinians and Arab states to accept the concessions of the United States and Israel prohibits real negotiations and promotes the second-class treatment of Palestinians. He documents what has really gone on in the occupied territories since the signing. He reports worsening conditions for the Palestinians critiques Yasir Arafat's self-interested and oppressive leadership, denounces Israel's refusal to recognize Palestine's past, and—in essays new to this edition—addresses the resulting unrest. In this unflinching cry for civic justice and self-determination, Said promotes not a political agenda but a transcendent alternative: the peaceful coexistence of Arabs and Jews enjoying equal rights and shared citizenship.

The Good Friday Agreement resulted in the cessation of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland. However, prejudice and animosity between Protestants and Catholics remains. The Real Peace Process draws on extensive fieldwork in Protestant and Catholic churches across Ireland to analyse how Christian worship can become caught up in sectarianism. The book examines the need for a peace process that changes hearts and minds and not merely civic structures of their inhabitants. Aspects of everyday worship – ranging from the spatial and symbolic to the verbal, musical and interpersonal – are explored as the means by which sectarianism can be challenged and transformed.

The work of the kind of non-aligned intellectual that we need more than ever today Independent A new edition of Edward Said s passionate critique of the Oslo Accord and its aftermath, updated to include around twenty new essays about the events of 2000-1. Said brilliantly analyses the deficiencies of Oslo, and the reasons why the subsequent Middle East peace process failed so disastrously. His criticism of the Accord has proved acutely prescient; but he retains hope, writing in an impassioned new introduction about the growing non-violent, secular Palestinian movement, and calling for those on the Israeli, European and American left to support it. Ever since 1993, Said has been the most trenchant and relentless critic of the Oslo agreements and the process they initiated&these pieces include not only many denunciations of Arafat s repressive and venal regime but also unsparing criticism of the lack of democracy in the wider Arab world, and of the refusal of many Arab intellectuals to engage in cultural dialogue with their Israeli counterparts Financial Times Bleak and passionate&Oslo, he claims, postponed the hard issues Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, borders and sovereignty foregrounding instead meaningless Israeli declarations about recognition which actually hinder the Palestinian quest for self-determination and liberation&his commitment to a democratic and secular Palestinian state is expressed with characteristic eloquence Irish Times These essays are brilliant displays of rigorous perspective, relentless concentration and impassioned dedication. He is uniquely impressive in the way that he combines appeals to the largest of categories justice, humanity, civility with attentiveness to detail&Said avoids infantile loyalties in order to shore up truths, and emerges from this collection as a vital ethical thinker& Independent

Soon after the Oslo accords were signed in September 1993 by Israel and Palestinian Liberation Organization, Edward Said predicted that they could not lead to real peace. In these essays, most written for Arab and European newspapers, Said uncovers the political mechanism that advertises reconciliation in the Middle East while keeping peace out of the picture. Said argues that the imbalance in power that forces Palestinians and Arab states to accept the concessions of the United States and Israel prohibits real negotiations and promotes the second-class treatment of Palestinians. He documents what has really gone on in the occupied territories since the signing. He reports worsening conditions for the Palestinians critiques Yasir Arafat's self-interested and oppressive leadership, denounces Israel's refusal to recognize Palestine's past, and—in essays new to this edition—addresses the resulting unrest. In this unflinching cry for civic justice and self-determination, Said promotes not a political agenda but a transcendent alternative: the peaceful coexistence of Arabs and Jews enjoying equal rights and shared citizenship.

Between 1983 and 2009 Sri Lanka was host to a bitter civil war fought between the Government and the Tamil Tigers, which sought the creation of an independent Tamil state. In May 2009 came the war's violent end with the crushing defeat of the Tamil Tigers at the hands of the Sri Lanka Army. But prior to this grim finale, for some time there had been hope for a peaceful end to the conflict. Beginning with a ceasefire agreement in early 2002, for almost five years a series of peace talks between the two sides took place in locations ranging from Thailand and Japan to Norway, Germany and Switzerland. To End a Civil War tells the story of trying to bring peace to Sri Lanka. In particular it tells the story of how a faraway European nation--Norway--came to play a central role in efforts to end the conflict, and what its small, dedicated team of mediators did in their untiring efforts to reach what ultimately proved the elusive goal of a negotiated peace. In doing so it fills a critical gap in our understanding of the Sri Lankan conflict. But it also illuminates in detail a much wider problem: the intense fragility that surrounds peace processes and the extraordinary lengths to which their proponents often stretch in order to secure their progress.

"A project of the International Peace Academy and CISAC, The Center for International Security and Cooperation"--P. ii.

Following nearly three decades of conflict and a series of failed ceasefire agreements, on 15 August 2005, the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Government of Indonesia reached an historic peace agreement to end the fighting and to give Aceh a high degree of genuine autonomy. The catalyst for the talks that produced this agreement was the devastating tsunami of 26 December 2004, which left almost 170,000 dead or missing in Aceh and destroyed most of the populated low-lying areas. Despite the massive destruction, the peace talks were conducted under an intensified military campaign. GAM made a major concession to the talks by announcing early that it was prepared to negotiate an outcome other than complete independence. The Indonesian side, however, under pressure from the military and "nationalists" in Jakarta, pressed for GAM to accept a minor reworking of the status quo. The international community, meanwhile, just pressed for a settlement. In the end, the Indonesian government also compromised, and the two parties reached an agreement that was intended to end the fighting and to address many, if not all, of GAM's outstanding claims. Despite opposition to the talks process, and to compromise, the outcome was increasingly seen both in Jakarta and in Aceh as a "win-win" situation, and as a further significant step in Indonesia's continuing process of reform and democratization. Peace in Aceh offers an insider's personal account of that peace process and is required reading for anyone wishing to understand this troubled province. DR. DAMIEN KINGSBURY is Associate Professor in the School of International and Political Studies and Director of International and Community Development at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. He was political adviser to GAM for the peace talks and assisted in drafting and negotiating key elements of the peace agreement. Dr. Kingsbury has published extensively on Indonesian politics, the military and regional security issues, including The Politics of Indonesia (3rd edition 2005), Violence in Between: Conflict and Security in Archipelagic Southeast Asia (2005), and Power Politics and the Indonesian Military (2003).

The Good Friday Agreement resulted in the cessation of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland. However, prejudice and animosity between Protestants and Catholics remains. The Real Peace Process draws on extensive fieldwork in Protestant and Catholic churches across Ireland to analyse how Christian worship can become caught up in sectarianism. The book examines the need for a peace process that changes hearts and minds and not merely civic structures of their inhabitants. Aspects of everyday worship – ranging from the spatial and symbolic to the verbal, musical and interpersonal – are explored as the means by which sectarianism can be challenged and transformed.