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Cultural Reform Required to Bring Peace between People
(The Hill) Ahmed Charai - While the hurdles a Trump peace plan faces are well known, the plan would also start with several advantages. The corollary of the administration's pro-Israel tilt is that no elected government in Israel can afford to ignore Trump's peace plan. In the Arab world, this tilt has not led to a straightforwardly negative response. As has been widely reported, ties between Israel and the dominant powers of the Sunni Arab world, especially with Saudi Arabia, have never been better. Several outlets have reported that Arab rulers have privately applied heavy pressure on Palestinian President Abbas to accept a peace agreement on terms to which he has not previously agreed. Security and prosperity demand a peace between people. The U.S. should accordingly push for a broader effort at cultural reform with the potential to generate the popular support necessary to sustain a peace process. Doing so means urging and equipping Arab allies to roll back generations of rejectionist messaging in Arab establishment-owned media, mosques and schools. It means supporting grassroots Arab voices that have been calling for relations between Arabs and Israel. The writer, a Moroccan publisher, is on the board directors of the Atlantic Council and an international counselor of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.