Symbolic Palestine — Palestine the dream — has for long hijacked Palestine the reality. Thus when Palestine is discussed, examined and scrutinized, the frame of reference is hardly the one invoked when any other similar conflict is discussed. Its resolution is rarely seen pertinent to international law or human rights and is barely understood - as it should - in terms of power and strategy. Rather it is a subject of flared imaginations, religious fantasy and fictitious constructs.

This realization was my initial thought on the International Conference on "Peace in Palestine" held in Malaysia, from March 28 to 30. I addressed the conference, and so did many other human rights activists, academics and religious scholars, including the judicious Arun Gandhi, the stimulating Phyllis Bennis and the eloquent Diana Buttu.

The conference was organized by Peace Malaysia, a large umbrella group of over 1000 civil society organizations and was attended by over 500 civil society activists from 34 countries. On the last day of the conference, an action plan of ten points was drafted and approved. The goal was to engage and enlist civil societies around the world in the attempt to take on Israel for its defiance of international law and denial of Palestinian human rights as well as legal rights.

Despite the lucidity of the stated goal of the gathering and the straightforwardness of its action plan, the conference itself was an embodiment of Palestine the dream, not the reality.

The Malaysian government's heavy involvement in the conference, for example, was a political message, and a Malaysian message at that. It was an attempt to claim the country's status as a leading Muslim country with many vested interests in the affairs of the Muslim world. But it was a message to the United States as well. Allowing Israeli citizens (delegates to the conference) to cross the Malaysian border for the first time ever was a subtle assurance that Malaysian politics is different. It is not the kind that espouses the Bin Laden-type activists. It is peaceful and modern. Just like Malaysia itself.

There were also the Israeli delegates, who despite their declared progressiveness and clarity of their peace message seemed more concerned with the "Jewish identity" of Israel, its "demographic needs" and its imminent "destruction" as a result of a one-state solution, than with the justness of the Palestinian struggle and what that justness entails apart from Israel's racist needs and wishes.

Also present was the interminable debate over violence and nonviolence as a means to curb the occupation, a debate that remained detached from the reality on the ground, and was solely motivated by ideological principles and spiritual dogmas.

One cannot and must not undermine the efforts of the inspiring activists whose awareness of the Palestinian reality on the ground is unmatched and whose sincere efforts to achieve peace with justice in Palestine translate to steady action and unequalled readiness to labor and even sacrifice for their beliefs.

However, it is this wrestle between the real as opposed to figurative and abstract awareness that shall define the course of action that is likely to follow. If Palestine continues to be understood - or misunderstood - outside its proper frame as a national struggle for rights within the appropriately corresponding international context, then little can be expected from any attempts to remedy its ailments.

It is time to distance Palestine from further interpretations and understand it as it is. Otherwise, Palestine, its people and conflict, shall be confined to the ever-augmented edifices of rhetoric with no connection to the real aspirations of a real people with real demands, awaiting justice and a moment of peace.

-Ramzy Baroud is an Arab-American journalist and editor in chief of PalestineChronicle.com and a program producer at Al-Jazeera Satellite Television.