EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK Seeking Common Ground lease call, said a Dearborn-based Arab American leader in a voicemail message. And I did. Nasser Beydoun, executive director of the American Arab Chamber of Commerce, had piqued my curiosity. It turned out that he objected to my Oct. 10 column about the U.S.-Arab Economic Forum in Detroit a week earlier. Israel wasn't invited to take part in the forum, but Israeli busi- nesses as well as Jewish American leaders, like U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., did attend. The forum was billed as a way to improve the image of the Arab world in the United States by fostering economic, educational, political and social reform. I felt delegates returning to the Middle East should urge the League of Arab States to embrace Israel. U.S.-Arab business couldn't prosper, I felt, without involvement by Israel, a high-tech nation arid America's strongest Mideast ally. I hoped that the summit would spur a last- ROBERT A. ing Arab warm-up toward Israel. Time will tell how many Arab states accept SKLAR the Jewish state as a diplomacy or Editor . trade partner, I said. Over the past four years, Beydoun, 39, has built the American Arab Chamber of Commerce into a 1,100-member organization. He envisions the chamber as an asset to U.S. policy in the Middle Fast. That goal intrigued me. Beydoun stressed that the summit was meant to buoy U.S.-Arab ties, not solve the Palestinian- Israeli crisis. He blamed the collapse of the U.S.- brokered road map for Middle East peace on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. I spoke with Beydoun, a Lebanon native, in the wake of 37 months of Palestinian terror, which has taken at least 900 Israeli and foreign lives. The intifida has claimed more than 2,500 Palestinians; they've died in Israeli defensive strikes or as suicide bombers, snipers or accomplices. po Different Takes "I understand the fear of Israelis," Beydoun said. "I empathize with them." He then set the stage for our discussion. 'As an Arab American," he said, "I believe Israel has a right to exist. I also believe the Palestinians have a right to statehood." For me, Palestinian statehood becomes more inviting only when the Palestinian people thwart terror, recognize Israel as a sovereign state in their newspapers, music videos and schools, and are willing to negotiate under the lens of world scrutiny. Beydoun doubted peace could come under Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. He blamed Sharon for breaking the summer calm by continuing to target Hamas leaders. He said Sharon undermined deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas as much as Arafat. I argued that Abbas was a puppet of Arafat. I said Sharon, though a warrior to the core, doesn't target civilians in a calcu- lated plot to annihilate the Palestinian people — in contrast to Arafat's understood vow to destroy Jewish control of Israel. I regretted that innocent Palestinians have died in crossfire or because they sided with Israel. But I expressed disgust with the anti-Zionism in official Palestinian Authority pronouncements. • We agreed that the hatred Arafat and Sharon have for each other virtually assures they won't be the ones to forge a lasting peace. So long as Arafat is a political force, Sharon can't let down his guard, I added. As we talked, I pondered how Sharon says he won't end Israel's military occupation in the disputed territories until the intifada stops and how Arafat says the terror won't end until Israel pulls its troops from Gaza and the West Bank. "You can't tell the Palestinians they have to stop attacking Israel while the Israeli government continues to build a wall and settlements," Beydoun said. "It's not going to happen." I have a hard time comparing suicide bombers that deliber- ately blow up babies to limit Israel's population growth with a protective fence and strategic settlements that became urgent when terror turned intolerable. I find it loathsome that the Palestinian Authority expresses remorse and conciliation to Western reporters following a ter- rorist attack on Israel or the U.S., but promotes to the Palestinian public the notion that America is part of a Jewish conspiracy causing their squalor and hopelessness. The Road Ahead Beydoun is right to insist that both sides must get a grip on reality and each other's sufferirig. As he put it: "We all need a solution. How many more innocent people need to die?" Beydoun pinned the prospect for peace on the near-dead road map. He chastised Israel for reneging on it by not pulling back troops and set- dements in the disputed territories. "With the wall, terrorists, settlements and suicide bomb- ings," he said, "no hope is in sight." He then hit the bull's eye. "It's incumbent upon America to move both parties," he said. "The only way to get an attitude change in the Arab world toward Israel is to resolve the conflict." Resolution is the great unknown. We know land is at the heart of it. "Demolishing homes, killing Palestinians, confiscating land and building settlements won't get any sympathy in the Arab world," Beydoun said. Until the terror stops, I countered, Israel must stand sentry over its land and citizens. Reason, not barbarity, must reign. Settlement growth since the Oslo Accords during the 1990s especially irked Beydoun. "How do you expect the Palestinians to negotiate for statehood," he asked, "when they see settle- ments whittling away their land?" But Judea and Samaria are Jewish biblical lands, I thought to myself Some settlements must go to bring peace, but others are vital to security. Could Israel defend itself if just nine miles wide along the sea? In closing, Beydoun said: "Jews have to step up and say to Sharon, 'Your policies in the West Bank and Gaza aren't get- ting you anywhere.'" We didn't solve anything, but Nasser Beydoun and I talked without rancor as we sought common ground. The dialogue affirmed my inner struggle. I yearn to walk the streets of the Old City without fear. I want to believe Arab leaders are open to peace with Israel. But then I see how they still call for Israel's destruction in Al Hayat AI Jadida, the official daily of the Palestinian Authority. Its tough to debate borders, occupation, settlements and refugees against that telling backdrop. ❑ 271 WEST MAPLE DOWNTOWN BIRMINGHAM 248.258.0212 Monday-Saturday 10-6 Thursday 10-9 Sunday 12-5 W k NT , V Am 11/ 7 2003 5