SCHOLAR SEES MIDEAST PEACE IN OFFING

Despite the recent heightened hostilities between Palestinians and Israelis and the collapse of the peace process, Middle East specialist Judith Kipper says an agreement establishing a Palestinian homeland is inevitable in our lifetime.

The statesmen required to lead the two sides to peace are not in power, she said, "but it will come sooner than later."

Kipper spoke to about 60 people Wednesday in a Common Hour program at Southeast Missouri State University.

That 70 percent of the Middle East's population is 25 years old or younger is a big reason why anti-American sentiment is percolating, Kipper said.

Youths want to participate politically and economically but cannot because they live in corrupt police states with stagnant economies, she said.

"They get very angry," she said, "but it's difficult to demonstrate against their own country so they demonstrate against the big guy."

Racism possible

The United States deserves some blame, in Kipper's view.

The United States has not helped Arab states starved for democratic reforms and economic opportunities as it did the countries of Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, she said.

Kipper suggested some racism may be behind this neglect as well as a fear of offending Arab leaders with talk of human rights.

At the same time, she said the United States has given more support to the Palestinians than any other country has.

After all the pain and bloodshed, she said, "they, too, have to grow up."

Just when the Palestinians and Israelis seemed finally ready to make peace, new violence shattered the dream.

This is the way in the Middle East, Kipper said, adding: "It happens without any notice."

The Palestinian leaders have lost control of their own movement, she said, and the Israelis have used excessive force. Still, Israel can no more impose its will on the Palestinians than the United States could on the Vietnamese, than the Russians could on Chechnya, than South Africa could through Apartheid, Kipper said.

"There is no military solution," Kipper said.

A consultant to ABC News, Kipper is director of the Council on Foreign Relations Middle East Forum and of the Middle East Studies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She is a former guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

She is on the board of the human rights organizations Middle East Watch and the Initiative for Peace and Cooperation in the Middle East.

Former President Bill Clinton was personally involved in the Mideast negotiations, but President George W. Bush won't be, Kipper said. Bush, however, has assembled an experienced foreign policy team in Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

The problem, she said, lies in the leadership of the Palestinians and the Israelis. Yassir Arafat has shown himself unable to make the transition from guerrilla leader to statesman, and former general Ariel Sharon is unlikely to make the same leap.

President Nixon's opening of China exemplified a leader demonstrating statesmanship, she said.

The question is, "How to you re-establish a constituency for peace?" she said.

Kipper compared the bloodshed in Israel to the situation in which the United States and Vietnamese negotiated a peace treaty in the 1970s.

"We spent years sitting with the Vietnamese in Paris while we were killing each other in Vietnam," she said.