Sergey Kirukhin. Now the quiet Nobel has flown by

Now the quiet Nobel has flown by
Sergey Kirukhin

Date of publication: October 17, 2000

This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded. And it was not awarded to Clinton at all. But it should have... After all, how well everything was planned: Camp David 2, a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, a brilliant diplomatic success, everyone stands up and unanimously praises the American genius. Clinton retires as the Great Peacemaker (and not the conqueror of interns), crowned with the laurel wreath of the Nobel laureate. But that is not all. Al Gore's presidential campaign gains strong support, and Clinton's party remains in power. Finally, Hillary Clinton's election campaign in New York (where Arab-Israeli relations are a special issue) also receives strong support, and the Clinton family successfully continues its political career. Such a wonderful hat-trick seemed almost like a reality. But everything burst.

In principle, any reasonable person could have predicted all of this in advance. Because it is quite clear: no incantations such as “Israelis and Palestinians are doomed to a peace agreement,” or lamentations that peace is much better than war, can help if reality does not want to match all this. When obsequious commentators, for example, joyfully reported that in principle everything had already been agreed upon, only one small detail remained - the status of Jerusalem, then this was tantamount to assurances that this legless man would now run straight away, all that remained was to figure out where he would get the money for this legs. And it was not true that the issue of the status of Jerusalem remained uncoordinated - in fact, nothing was ready except general statements.

True, a look at the list of Nobel laureates shows that it is precisely such meaningless incantations that turn out to be the main argument in discussions about the merits of this or that politician. The main thing is to get on the list in time and hold out for at least some time, and then run away in time when everything collapses. Who remembers that 4 years ago the Nobel Peace Prize was given for resolving the problem of East Timor, where people have been dying for the second year and there is no way to normalize the situation even a little, even despite the presence of international peacekeeping forces? And the Arafat-Peres-Rabin prize for the Middle East “breakthrough”, awarded 6 years ago, no longer looks so impressive in light of recent events.

However, there is one Nobel story, which would be especially appropriate to remember now, especially since its main characters do not want to remember it at all. 1973: Paris Agreement on Vietnam and Nobel Prize for Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. Myrrh's verbiage and praise on this occasion knew no bounds. An outstanding achievement. Peace on the long-suffering land of Vietnam. Etc. In fact, it was a fairly simple combination: it became clear to the United States that it had neither the strength nor the point to hold the Vietnamese front. And it was necessary to urgently get out of this situation with the least losses. For the USA, of course. Because no one thought about the Vietnamese. And when the Viet Cong tank columns entered conquered Saigon, when the inhabitants of South Vietnam (except for the top of society, which the Americans nevertheless saved, although not disinterestedly) rushed into the open sea on any vessel with the desperate hope that someone would pick them up (and no - you’re going to die anyway), regular peace lovers pretended that nothing was happening and that the agreement and the bonus were not a fig leaf that was supposed to cover up the shame of political cynicism.

There are plenty of examples of this kind. More recent: the surrender of Hong Kong. Or Macau (however, almost no one noticed this little thing). Such a “Vietnamese option” for the Middle East was possible in principle this year: the United States declares that peace has been achieved and withdraws from the game. The rest is a matter of time and technology. It was mainly Arafat who ruined the whole thing. He did not understand that the vagueness of the situation was in his favor. Or, perhaps, he felt that some kind of game was going on here, but again did not catch what could pick up this game. Analysis of the situation, as history shows, is not the strong point of Palestinian leaders. However, the Israelis did not want to go beyond a completely dangerous line. And the entire elegant (from an American point of view) structure collapsed.

Israel's position on the world map has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Although Israel itself did not move anywhere and did not significantly change its political positions. But the weight of the Arab world has changed. The importance of Arab oil for the American and, in general, Western economies has changed. And it has become expensive to maintain this rarity of political geography. Therefore, the temptation arose to get rid of responsibility for it. It is indecent to talk about the price and who will pay for it in such a situation. After all, the long-awaited peace is coming to the long-suffering land.

Now this “peace process” has been interrupted. Well-wishers and those who have not understood anything continue to lament and assure that all is not lost (that is, the legless man will still run). Clinton tried to hide, but the situation escalated so much that he, as a politician directly responsible for the result, still had to crawl out of the oval office and fly to the East. He, however, warned that one cannot count on great success. That's for sure.

And anyone who really thinks about peace in the Middle East should not engage in spells, but seriously understand the many problems that are intertwined in this political-geographical zone.

To begin with, it would be nice to understand what kind of state of Israel is, how it was formed, what its role was and what place in the world it can occupy now and in the future. It is very difficult to talk about this, given the fate of the Jewish people, but it is necessary to talk - and not with the help of ideological clichés, but in terms adequate to history and the situation. By the way, here we have to take into account the role of utopia, and the utopian moment both in the aliyah movement and in the emergence of the state of Israel was very strong - responsible to a large extent for the situation when two peoples found themselves on the same land. We know very well that realized utopias are a very insidious thing.

Next, it is necessary to deal with minorities and the right to. That is, who is the minority (more likely: the weak) where and who has the right to what and why. Because if we look only at the pair of Israelis and Palestinians, then the Palestinians really seem to be the minority in it. But if we take into account that the Palestinians in reality act not as a separate ethnic (and, moreover, religious) unit, but as part of the Arab and Muslim world, then the Israelis are already a minority. That is, each position has its own minority. We need clarity about who and when to protect. The same goes for the rights to. If the Palestinians have the right to, then it is unclear why the Kurds do not have the right to. And why, say, the Kurds of Iraq are an oppressed minority that needs the protection of the world community, and the same Kurds, having moved a few kilometers to the west - into the territory of Turkey, are no longer an oppressed minority and do not need any protection. And in general, are the Turks and Kurds doomed to peace or not, and if not, then why. Without somehow understanding all this, there is no point in thinking about a real solution to the Palestinian problem.

And here’s another question: what to do with the idea of ​​a special status for a number of Palestinian territories? The proposal for international control over them sounds very tempting, but the historical reality of the 20th century suggests that all situations of international control in reality represented a hidden, deferred form of transfer of territory to someone. Where are all these mandated territories, free ports and so on? There is none of them. And Berlin is already simply a part of Germany, and only a few of our retired politicians stubbornly remember its special status.

Answers to these questions, despite the abundance of Nobel laureates, are now as difficult as they were decades ago. And actions based on the principle “you have strength, you don’t need brains” have already given rise to so many problems that the next generations of politicians will clearly have something to do in different parts of the world.

We have to remind you once again: peace comes not because they talk a lot about it, and not because some politician wants it. The world arises when conditions for it mature (including as a result of purposeful activity). Everything else is either deception or self-deception; and what is more dangerous is difficult to say. The worst horrors of 20th century politics were covered up by talk of peace. It's time to say goodbye to this.