PROVO — One of the main reasons for the lack of resolution in the Arab-Israeli conflict is that the two groups have been defining the problem for 60 years, an expert in counter-terrorism said at a gathering in Provo last week.

Omar Kader, a former Brigham Young University professor and assistant dean of the College of Social Sciences, also said that the Bush administration has damaged a lot of the hard work that had been done in the area by previous U.S. presidents.

"President Reagan did a little bit, President Bush did a little bit, President Clinton did a lot and then this President Bush takes over and says the last thing we are going to do is waste our time on this," Kader said. "So for 7 1/2 years we have done nothing."

Kader spoke to a group of about 20 people at the home of well-known Provo residents Monroe and Shirley Paxman in downtown Provo, which is just down the road from where Kader grew up.

Kader, who is now the chairman and owner of Pal-Tech Inc., was born and raised in Provo. He attended BYU before earning a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, and has served as the executive director of the United Palestinian Appeal and executive director of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee. For Pal-Tech he is an expert in counter terrorism policy and a strong advocate for democracy throughout the world.

"We think of him as our own authority throughout the world," Monroe Paxman said. "And the most important Palestinian in the world that was born in Provo."

Kader now lives in Washington, D.C., but travels throughout the world for his work and service as an international elections monitor in Palestine, Yemen and Indonesia.

Kader believes that nothing will get done in the Arab-Israeli conflict without the help of the U.S., and that it is in the country's best interest to be involved because the whole Muslim world cares about it.

"From my own perspective, the sooner we get handling the peace between Arabs and Israelis, the quicker we will be moving towards peace in the Middle East, on a lot of fronts," he said.

As someone who has studied and been involved in peace talks in various capacities over the years, Kader scoffed at the Bush administrations tactic of not speaking to certain countries.

"It is an ideology that says don't negotiate with people that you don't like and we don't just reform them, we want to overthrow them," Kader said. "It is a nice plan and a nice ideology if it works, but we don't know where it has ever worked before."

Middle Eastern Studies students from the University of Utah at the event said they felt Kader articulated the need for urgency of this issue.

"A lot of people see Israeli-Palestinian peace conflict separate from Iraq, and separate from terrorism, but I think (Kader) did a good job of explaining that if we were able to solve this it would take a lot of reason of existence away from some of these terrorist groups," said David McGee, a 26-year-old University of Utah student.

Kader talked several times about the importance of the upcoming presidential election in finding a leader that will give the correct vision.

Asked who that correct person is, he acknowledged that he was going out on a ledge to say that it was going to be ... either Sens. John McCain, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

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