TOO many times were we close to clinching the joy of peace and every time we allowed it to slip out of our hands. Perverse? Or sabotage? Take the fatal errors racing down towards a civilisationending catastrophe. Think of Gaza, Ukraine and, not least, Kashmir, among the terrifying raging stand-offs. But first let`s set aside the unhelpful narratives stalking all three zones about the alleged inability of people of different races, speaking different languages, and following different faiths and beliefs to live together in harmony and peace. Curiously, but not eventually surprisingly, in all three troubled contexts, the divisive hand of colonialism is clearly visible.

Jews and Muslims had lived in Palestine in harmony before the Nakba of 1948, did they not? Who turned them against each other? In fact, in an even earlier era, Christians, Jews and Muslims were enjoying legendary harmony in Spain during the much-maligned Moorish rule.

Tariq Ali has forcefully highlighted the subversion of that almost forgotten Andalusian history by contrived zealotry. Even today, aren`t young Jewish students and activists in the US leading the campaign to stop Israel`s war crimes against the Palestinians who incidentally comprise Muslims and Christians? Palestine has been turned into a religious fight today. For those who were not around, Yasser Arafat`s wife, Suha Tawil, was a Palestinian Christian. George Habash and Leila Khaled, together with countless others were militant Palestinians from the Christian tradition. They fought for a single Palestine where its Jews, Christians and Muslims would cohabit in peace and equal justice like before the Balfour Declaration poisoned their lives. America`s Jewish youth are not doing anything that wasn`t done by their forebears. They are carrying on the torch lit by Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, Gabor Maté and Norman Finkelstein among other Jewish public intellectuals canvassing support for a Jewish-Arab embrace.

Given the incontrovertible narrative of their history, Jews and Arabs should not be thought of living separately in a two-state solution but together as equal citizens in a single country.

The toxicity introduced to vacate the possibility owes much to colonial perfidy.

As for Ukraine and Russia, they fought Nazi Germany together as part of the Soviet Union.Their sacrifices and unity in the Great Patriotic War disturbed colonialists. Winston Churchill`s bilious `Iron Curtain` venom flowed from the colonial legacy of Russophobia. Historically, Russia and Ukraine had one church and shared common customs and culture. We talk of HinduMuslim differences as the inviolable truth, but who pitted Russians and Ukrainians against each other? A reasonable surmise lies in the Ukrainian boast of single-handedly targeting Russia`s strategic air fleet last week. Wellregarded analysts see MI6 fingerprints on thecapabilities used exclusively by MI6 and/or CIA, their rogue elements mushrooming under Donald Trump`s watch. Pre-colonial Britain owes much to the 15th-century discovery of America, before which it was an insignificant chaotic island raided frequently by various European powers. In a sense, the trans-Atlantic voyage of Santa Maria became the bane of Kashmir, a land colonial powers would grab and sell at will to the highest bidder. Kashmir`s fabled trout farms were seeded by British administrators while the partition of the subcontinent and its fallout trapped unsuspecting Kashmiris in a typically colonial vortex sans the Good Friday Agreement.

All three hotspots, which are experiencing strife today, were watching low-hanging fruits of peace, which they were robbed of. What was Russia wanting from the West? Don`t bring Nato to Russian borders. Accept Russia as an equal and friendly neighbour in Europe. Instead, they unleashed Victoria Nuland on Ukraine and the Maidan coup set up a most bloody conflict. Even here, the two Minsk accords were used to mock Russia instead of negotiating durable peace withit. The more recent Istanbul subterfuges instigated by Britain are all too well known.

As for Palestine, I covered the Arab League summit in Fez in 1981. The eight-point Fahd Plan, authored by the then Saudi crown prince, offered way more than the closest friends of Palestine are hoping for today. East Jerusalem would be the capital of the new Palestinian state.

Israel would withdraw from all occupied territories. The only condition was the recognition of the state of Israel, and an endorsement of its security by the Arabs. The Cold War was at its peak. Iraq, Libya, Syria and South Yemen declined the offer. Post-Cold War, the Oslo Accords were framed as a watered-down version of the Fez plan. That too was subverted when a Jewish supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Since then, Israel has been periodically `mowing the grass`, its name for routinely weakening the resistance and killingitsleaders.

The lowest of low-hanging fruits in this regard was perhaps the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. Pervez Musharraf`s four-point formula was ready to be signed by India`s Manmohan Singh when the military dictator was deposed. Now the Modi government says it demonetised 85 per cent of the Indian currency to fight terrorism. It flaunts the dismantling of Kashmir`s special status as a winner against terrorism. Currently, it is trying out war. A newsroom exchange between two Sri Lankan seniors in a Dubai newspaper may provide a way out. Dudley Fernando was the leader writer whose wife would pack cheese sandwiches he never shared with anyone. One day he complained of a severe headache. Mervyn Periera, the sports editor, found his chance.

`Dudley,` he yelled angrily. `Try wiping that cheese from your glasses.` The advice worked and Dudley and Mervyn became friends. The smudgy piece of cheese in the India-Pakistan context is the fog of war. Clean it and you would probably see as clear as daylight that `terrorism` is a political problem, not a law-and-order issue.

It can be best tamed by peaceful discussions, not war. The tragedies of Gaza and Ukraine are instructive.

The writer is Dawn`s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi @gmail.com