September 11, Crisis Resolution

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"The Middle East Conflict: A Positive Role for the Media"

Dennis Sandole
Prof. of Conflict Resolution and International Relations

"Letter to the editor" in an upcoming edition of the Washington Post.

In recent years, the Washington Post has become more analytical and less simplistic in its reports and editorials on various conflicts, which is salutary given that the media play an important role in shaping perceptions and responses to conflicts worldwide.

An editorial in the Post on July 27, 2002, "Sri Lanka's Peace Process" (p. A20), recognizes the unique achievements of Ranil Wickremasinghe, prime minister of Sri Lanka, a country torn apart by terrorist violence (including suicide bombings) for years, resulting in 60,000 fatalities. Elected last December on a pro-peace platform, the PM has been "getting some results by addressing the root causes of the violence -- deprivation in Sri Lanka's northern and eastern regions and the aspiration of the ethnic Tamil minority
there to rule itself."

The senses light up when a government argues that a peaceful solution to its violent conflict with a minority depends on dealing effectively with the "root causes" of that conflict, namely the minority's demands for self-determination.

Contrast this, for instance, with the Russian response to similar demands by Chechens or the Israeli response to Palestinian demands where, according to Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson (Wash Post, August 18, 2002, pp. A1 and A16), not only are the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not
being addressed, but they are being exacerbated by "a war of attrition."

Indeed, during the last 23 months, "bombings and other Palestinian attacks against civilians -- and Israeli efforts to combat them -- have fueled the worst cycle of violence between Arabs and Jews within Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the Israeli state was born in 1948" (p. A16).

Against the background of the editorial on the Sri Lankan peace process, the Moore and Anderson report just might cause some Israeli leaders (and Russians, among others) to consider that the only way they are going to have peace and security is if their minorities have peace and security: peacemaking is not, in other words, a zero-sum game.

The Washington Post is to be congratulated for going some length in making this clear.