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The
Electronic Intifada
The International Crisis Group today launched a new global
advocacy initiative designed to generate new political momentum for
a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Major
funding support for the initiative -- to cost around $400,000 in its
first year -- was announced at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting
in New York.
"After the chaos of the last few months, there is a new sense
of urgency about finding a comprehensive, just and sustainable
peace", said Crisis Group President Gareth Evans. "There is also
broad international understanding of what is needed to ultimately
resolve the conflict. But the spark has to be somehow lit, and a
serious new process started".
Crisis Group's initiative will have five dimensions:
An international publicity campaign, in the first instance
mobilising respected former presidents, prime ministers, foreign and
defence ministers, congressional leaders and heads of international
organisations around a statement of support for a comprehensive
settlement, and a new process to achieve it -- involving a possible
international conference to kickstart negotiations, and the
leadership role of the Quartet (U.S., EU, Russia, UN) being
reinforced by greater participation from the Arab League and
regional countries.
The statement now circulating, to be released in the first
week of October, has already been signed by more than 80 such U.S.
and global leaders, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Frank Carlucci,
Gro Harlem Brundtland, Joschka Fischer, Christopher Patten and
Desmond Tutu.
A series of brainstorming sessions, bringing together
officials and regional experts, to help inform the actions of the UN
Secretary-General, his Middle East envoys, the other Quartet players
and relevant regional countries. The first such meetings were held
in New York on 1 and 13 September, and more will follow.
A high-level group of former U.S. Government officials
will be convened to generate bipartisan support for the U.S.
administration to engage fully in efforts to achieve a comprehensive
resolution. The first round of consultations on this track took
place in Washington DC on 18 September.
A Crisis Group task force of respected international
figures will be established, after a detailed settlement strategy
has emerged from these consultations, to visit key international
capitals and build support.
Crisis Group will continue to produce a series of reports
and briefings on the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as the domestic
situations in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and Syria, and the closely
related situations in Iran and Iraq, to provide information,
analysis and guidance to policy-makers.
Crisis Group's initiative is designed to help fill the present
policy vacuum, stem the slide toward greater instability, and
provide a viable alternative to moderates in the region on both the
Israeli and Arab sides.
"With prevailing moods in the region, and among the key
international players, any move toward compromise will be extremely
difficult", said Crisis Group's Middle East Program Director Robert
Malley. "But the extreme fragility of the situation, and the renewed
willingness of leading Arab countries to find a path to peace, offer
a significant opportunity for new ideas to emerge and to be pushed
forward".
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