Giving Peace Talks a Chance

The Geneva accord that was presented yesterday -- proposing hypothetical terms for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- reminds me of the old John Lennon song, "Imagine." I love that song, loopy as it is.

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people,
Living life in peace.

It may be romantic nonsense, but it's a nice distraction from reality. And I feel the same way about the Geneva accord.

Sometimes it's important to have a "peace process," even when the prospects for real peace seem slim. It's like imagining the existence of an afterlife -- the very notion of a blessed end state gives people a reason not to do terrible things in the here and now.

The Geneva accord was negotiated by teams led by former Israeli and Palestinian ministers Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo. It has no standing whatever, of course. But the fact that it was being denounced yesterday by hard-liners from both sides testifies to the power of an idea. Imagining what peace might look like turns out to be a provocation.

Karl Marx famously observed that religion was the opiate of the masses, and perhaps the same could be said for diplomacy. If a peace process is underway, it encourages people to think that there is an alternative to the state of war. It posits a future when things will be different. It empowers those who want to change the status quo.

The latest to realize the value of peace talk is Syria's young president, Bashar Assad. In an interview Sunday with the New York Times, Assad urged the Bush administration to revive a Syrian-Israeli peace process. "You cannot just keep talking about this vision," he said, "you have to put a mechanism in order to achieve that vision."

Assad's trial balloon was well timed. He knows that the Bush administration and Ariel Sharon's government in Israel both need a distraction from problems in their respective occupied territories. And he knows that his father, Hafez Assad, survived in power for nearly three decades thanks partly to a permanent peace process -- one that never quite produced a final treaty but never collapsed into war either. Syria and Israel trade insults, but not artillery fire -- the sort of behavior that ought to give hypocrisy a good name.

The "Imagine" fantasy being enacted in Geneva by Israelis and Palestinians is wonderfully detailed, with maps, timetables, annexes and all the other minutiae of an actual peace treaty. It divvies up roads, airspace and even the "electromagnetic sphere." ("Neither Party's use of the electromagnetic sphere may interfere with the other Party's use.") More important, the "negotiators" tried to resolve the hardest endgame issues -- the ones that have ruined all the previous peace processes. They agreed on a formula for sharing control of Jerusalem. They outlined a plan for defusing the Palestinian "right of return" so that refugees would be guaranteed a "permanent place of residence," but not necessarily in Israel. They proposed a multinational force to guarantee security for both sides.

Critics may argue that this illusory concreteness only reinforces the absurdity of the Geneva accord. But the same complaint could be made of any effort to speak about peace in a time of war. By sending a copy to every home in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the drafters allowed citizens on both sides to imagine a different future. That's subversive, in itself.

The idea of compromise embodied in the Geneva accord is threatening to those who believe they can have it all. It's threatening to Sharon, who promised that his harsh methods would provide the security that Israelis demand. And it's threatening to the Muslim militants who argue that suicide bombings will eventually force a demoralized Israel to capitulate.

The real illusion in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the idea of victory. It ain't going to happen -- no matter how many suicide bombings or house demolitions each side attempts. By contrast, the idea of a negotiated peace settlement ought to seem practical. I like the thought of Israelis and Palestinians sitting in their homes this week, looking over the maps and clauses of the Geneva accord, and telling each other, "You know, maybe this isn't so crazy after all."

That's the value of the thought exercise conducted this week in Geneva -- that it made the possibility of peace seem as real, for a moment, as the prevailing state of war. Yes, rational people must be vigilant and determined. But imagine. . . .

davidignatius@washpost.com