LAHORE, Aug 24 Georgetown scholar Imam Dr Yahya Hendi has said the Arab-Israel conflict should be resolved while following three basic principles - politics of justice, economics of equity and covenant of communities.

Delivering a lecture on “A peaceful resolution to Arab-Israeli conflict”, organised by Punjab University's History department, in collaboration with Pakistan Study Centre (PSC), Imam Yahya said the politics of justice meant that all the governments should maintain the vision and practice of justice in all fields of life for all communities.

The economics of equity, he added, signified that the people should be paid in accordance with what they do; their ability to avail economic opportunities and educational facilities. Similarly, referring to covenant of communities, he stressed that rights of all the communities should be protected regardless of caste and creed.

Imam Yahya, who had been serving as an adjunct faculty member for many prestigious institutions including John Hopkins University, and delivering lectures world over on interfaith harmony for over 10 years, emphasised that these three principles could provide bedrock for the solution of the Arab-Israel conflict.

Referring to the projected solutions to the conflict, he opined that two-state solution envisaging independent Israel and Palestine was impractical as the latter would be divided into two geographically separate areas and the former would lie in between. This would make Palestine politically and economically unviable, he said. He also believed that one-state solution was also not possible in the present circumstances where the Jews felt themselves insecure as a minority and the Palestinians were highly distrustful of them.

He said the present US administration had launched a peace initiative and President Obama's Cairo speech was an important break from the past. He emphasised that Pakistan, due to its geopolitical importance, along with the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League, should come forward to respond to this initiative and present a unified voice on the issue.

Imam Yahya also traced the roots of Arab-Israel conflict to the emotional involvement of Muslims, Christians and Jews in the region of Palestine, particularly Jerusalem. He believed that as it was a sacred place for the three mainstream religions, it should be accessible to the whole world.

Earlier, Department of History and Pakistan Studies chairman Prof Dr S Qalb-i-Abid gave a historical perspective of the Palestine problem, mentioning the British promise (the Balfour declaration) to create a separate Jewish state, increasing Jewish population from only thousands to millions. After the creation of Israel in 1948, the Palestine problem became a problem not only for the Middle East but for the whole world. He said there had been Arab-Israeli war (1948-1967) and mini-wars, (recently Hizbullah-Israel conflict) on this issue in which innocent people had been killed.

He said only US president Carter had made some serious efforts to solve the Middle East crisis. However, now it had been realised by America and the Jews themselves that the security of Israel depended on the creation of a separate state for the Palestinians.