Some Common Sense About Peace

BY MARTY PERETZ
Monday, May 12, 2008

Abdurrahman Wahid is the former president of Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world.  He has written an article with Abdul A'la, associate dean of graduate studies at Sunan Ampel Islamic State University at Surabaya.  I admit it: I saw these two names and the headline, "The Obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian Peace," over their op-ed essay and wondered what it was doing in the staunchly pro-Zionist Wall Street Journal.

Then I realized that I had seen Wahid's name before, and that he was a Muslim heretic about the widely entrenched dogma in the Muslim world around Israel.  The piece is clear, strong and complex.  He knows that there are forces in the Jewish state that are quite averse to a dignified settlement of the hundred-year conflict, and their position has been reinforced by the hatred they see coming from the Arab world.

But Wahid and A'la are not speaking to the Jewish world.  They are speaking as Muslims to the Muslim world.  "These prejudices contaminate public discourse throughout the world, and are constantly exploited by Middle Eastern regimes that fuel anti-Israel and anti-Semitic emotions for political purposes, while displaying little or no actual concern for the well-being of the Palestinians themselves."

May their wisdom flourish.