To do this, it has to help them construct strong civil societies and viable states.
Then, and urgently, it means trying to make progress toward secure, viable states of both Israel and Palestine.
The Yugoslav breakup showed that the century-old formula for self-determination — forcing together tribes who hate each other just to make them viable states — has failed.
But there had to be a spirit of "mutuality and reciprocity": two viable states, side by side, within the 1967 borders, and no Jewish settlers on Palestinian land.
They believe Africa's wars, corruption and tribalism are "just the way Africa is", and that African societies are unable to sustain viable states.
The key point is that unlike the Israelis, none of the actors in Bosnia and Kosovo are made less secure by a partition that creates viable states on both sides of the dividing lines.
Jayyous is just one example of the way in which the Israeli-planned, fenced-in Palestinian "state-lets" are at odds with the stated intention of the quartet and so many others, of two viable states, "side by side".
Those who see the continent as the victim of external forces must accept that parts of Asia, too, were subject to rapacious colonialists and have, within a generation after independence, established viable states and successful economies.
Because the process lacked a Palestinian partner, the disengagement plan was too peremptory to promise a final settlement, but at least it suggested progress toward the sole mutually acceptable resolution of the historic conflict — two viable states, side by side, in a lasting, if uneasy, peace.
It has become fashionable to argue that the solution lies in partition, but if smaller and more viable states do eventually emerge in Iraq it will only be after a long period of mass slaughter as horrific as any that occurred when India was partitioned.
After the fetus has become viable, states may substantially regulate and even proscribe abortion, but any such regulation or proscription must contain an exception for instances "where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother".
