Recently, I posted a blog about reading Azzedine Downes’s great new book; “The Couscous Chronicles.”

https://disruptionbooks.com/books/the-couscous-chronicles

In one of the chapters, Mr. Downes conveys a comical story of how he met Yasser Arafat; former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and President of the Palestinian National Authority while he himself was working as a diplomatic U.S Government Employee in Israel.

In 1994, Yasser Arafat along with Israel’s Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East. The truth be known, Arafat has been accused of many things; being a peacemaker, a visionary, a “traitor” to his own cause, a charismatic leader, a terrorist, a mob boss, a corrupt opportunist, and a general pain in the ass to everyone he had ever encountered. For me, one thing seemed abundantly true; he was “everywhere.”

He was in the news, on the news, and making the news. He was on the cover of Time Magazine and many other publications. He was the starting and ending point for so many discussions, policy forums, and round table strategy sessions. To be honest, I was sick of it. I was tired of hearing about “Peace in the East,” especially seeing how it’s fleeting possibilities had drowned out any attention to any of the billions of other world problems. This is not to say I didn’t wish and hope for peace; not only for the Israelis and Palestinians but for all the people of the world.

So here it is, almost 30 years since the Oslo Accords; a series of secret talks and negotiations in Norway, that led Israel to agree for the Palestinian National Authority to “self-rule” the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, while the PLA agreed to recognize Israel’s right to “exist.” When surveying the present geo-political landscape, what do I see? Arafat is dead; basically exiled to Paris and died either by poisoning or AIDS, depending on which story you read. The Israelis and Palestinians are each awash in blood, terror, violence, poverty, famine and desperation. The once prominent people, news, diplomatic events, and hope of Peace in 1993 are gone; forgotten, dismissed, abandoned, and rewritten like the “revisionist news” in Orwell’s novel “1984”.

There is one exception, even to my own forgotten memory; the small tale in Azzedine’s book where his descriptions of life in Gaza and Israel decades ago are a time-traveler’s forewarning of the “shape of things to come.” 

People and events, no matter how prominent, famous, or infamous, can fade fast and disappear from the “spotlights” of time.

Unfortunately, so can Peace.

Editors Note; Azzedine Downes will be joining in on the “Blogging From A-Z Challenge” for the first time this year, and writing about travel. A visit and check out of his new blogs would be well worth your time and curiosity! His link is below.

https://azzedinetdownes.wordpress.com/