SENTINEL WATCH July 29, 2002 Issue

A time for steadfastness

By Russ Gerber

Former US Senator George Mitchell is architect of the Mitchell plan for attaining peace in the Middle East. On the PBS News-Hour program he was asked about the prospects for attaining peace in the region. "In the making of peace," he explained, "the first thing you must do is expunge the word failure from your vocabulary. It takes perseverance; it takes patience. And anyone can claim failure at any point short of success."

The senator speaks from hard-earned experience. Over a two-year period, he helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland. "For the first 700 days," he said, "they [the negotiations] could have been described as a failure. And on the 701st day we had a success." Persistence and patience paid off, and the end result was worth the effort. The people of the province were euphoric. Mary McCarron, a mother of eight from Londonderry said, "It was like being in a dark tunnel for a long, long time. All of a sudden, there was light" (The Christian Science Monitor, June 3, 1999).

Then there's the Middle East. Everyone recognizes the need to see even a glimmer of light at the end of that "tunnel." Ongoing violence in the region argues that the road ahead will be long and dark.

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