Failure is only temporary.”

This is what leading peace activist and former US senator George Mitchell told conference delegates this week in Bermuda.

In a witty but hard-hitting talk, Sen. Mitchell took delegates through his arduous time working on the peace process in Northern Ireland and the continuing conflicts there and the difficulties facing any peace process in the Middle East.

“You have got to have patience and not be deterred by violence,” he told delegates at the Hawksmere 17th International Reinsurance Congress, where he was the keynote speaker on Wednesday afternoon.

The Senator spoke of the risk of instability in world and the dangers posed to the world by violence and wars. And he said he was still hopeful that peace could be found in the Middle East - despite the hatred and violence in the region.

He said he had spent five years in Northern Ireland, working to find a solution to a conflict that had raged for a quarter of a century - and that had taught him to have hope for end to hostilities between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Following his retirement from the Senate in 1995 Sen. Mitchell was appointed by President Bill Clinton as a special advisor to the president and the secretary of state for economic initiatives in Ireland. His work, which started with the Mitchell Report which was released in 1996, is central to building a lasting peace in Northern Ireland.

His report called for a phasing-out of guerrilla weapons in Northern Ireland in addition to elections prior to the opening of peace talks. “The agreement by itself did not guarantee success,” he said. But he added that in 2002 only six people had died in this conflict - a huge improvement on the thousands that had died during 25 years of violent struggle.

And he said that he learnt a great many things from his work in Northern Ireland - especially not to give up hope of finding peace.

“From my experience there I have learnt that there is no conflict that cannot be ended,” he said. And he said that most ordinary people who lived in areas of conflict wanted peace, despite the hatred that evolved from violent acts and reciprocated acts of revenge.

“Conflict is not inevitable,” he said, adding that there was always a way to find peace as it was men who created the situations in the first place, and it was the same men who could find a solution to the world's problems. “Agreement can be reached,” he added.

Sen. Mitchell said that the prospect of a third world war was “extremely small” as there was now only one super power, but violence still existed all around the world.

But he said that in these hot spots there was an “enormous yearning for an end to violence” and it was this that had propelled the peace process in Northern Ireland and gave hope to the stalled process in the Middle East.

Following his success in Northern Ireland Sen. Mitchell was asked by not only President Clinton, but also Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, and president of the Palestinian Council Yasser Arafat, to help with the peace process in the Middle East. He chaired the Sharm el-Sheikh International Fact-Finding Committee which wanted to examine the continuing crisis between the Israelis and the Palestinians and finding a way to end the violence in the area. The committee released its report in May 2001, but all attempts to find a “roadmap” to peace continue to fail.

Sen. Mitchell said that there was hope as the people of both Israel and Palestine wanted an end to the conflict and could barely live their lives because of the violence which touched every part of their worlds.

“Life is simply unbearable for everyone on both sides,” he said. “The tension is palpable, the economy completely destroyed. But despite the enormous hatred about 70 percent of the people continue to support the prospect of peace and a two state solution. But because of the violence, neither side trusts the other side.”

And he said that Israelis would never achieve a peaceful state without Palestine getting its own state, and Palestine would never get its own state without Israel getting its own state.

Sen. Mitchell added that he had advocated stopping new Israeli settlements until the lines of two separate and viable states had been drawn up - but this advice in his report had been ignored. He added that all sides had welcomed his report, which was released in May 2001, but that neither trusted each other enough to take the steps needed to find a workable peace settlement.

“Violent acts are reciprocated by violent acts, so it is almost impossible to work back to where the original violent act came from. What we need to find is a culture where peaceful acts are reciprocated by acts of peace as well.”

But he said that his work in Northern Ireland had shown him one thing - to keep trying and moving forward in a bid to find a peaceful solution - and it might just happen.