If justice is the sole consideration in the Middle East, then there will never be peace, a pair of experts said last night.
The Penn Arab Society brought two speakers to the Law School to discuss relations between Israel and Palestinians .
Omar Dajani, a professor at Pacific Law School, said he went into Israel in 1999 believing that a agreement would be concluded within a year.
However, Kamal Fattah, a visiting professor at Princeton University, said that his experience living most of his life as a refugee in occupied territory led him to believe that talks would not solve the region's problems.
Fattah said that the recent election of the anti-Israel Hamas party to power was "extremely democratic" and "unnecessarily blown out of proportion" by the U.S. government, proving that the faith Palestinian leaders had placed in the U.S. was a "major mistake."
He added that Hamas means to focus on issues such as border disputes, sovereignty questions, ownership of shared waters, security and access to and ownership of Jerusalem.
He said that it is essential for Hamas to fight corruption and establish a good judicial system.
Calling peace talks in Madrid, Washington and Norway "useless and boring," Fattah added that the current situation leaves no possibility for any successful negotiations.
"The Palestinian under occupation is living the most miserable life, but at least he's living. He is not going to compromise anymore," Fattah said.
Dajani attributed the failure of peace talks between 1999 and 2001 to the absence of international ground rules.
He said that Palestinians and Israel couldn't agree on guiding laws and that the talks were deadlocked by U.S. refusal to enforce an outcome unless it was reached by bilateral negotiations.
The question and answer session that followed the talk was an animated discussion on recent changes in the situation in the region.
Dajani emphasized that the United Nations does not recognize territory acquired by force and said that returning refugees to their homes is indispensible to any future negotiation process.
Fattah concluded by saying that changes have come gradually and that more are imminent. He said it was "a miracle" that the Israelis were now ready to talk about resolving issues such as the drawing of national borders.
"The Israelis believed that there were no Palestinians 15 years ago," Fattah said. "They now recognize that ... they cannot extinguish the Palestinians."
