Mideast peace 'decades away'

The Israeli professor who won a Nobel prize yesterday for his research on strategy and conflict had few words of comfort for compatriots wondering when their decades-old fight with the Palestinians would end.

"It's been going on for at least 80 years and as far as I can see it is going to go on for at least another 80 years.

"I don't see any end to this one, I'm sorry to say," Robert Aumann told reporters when asked about prospects of achieving peace.

Mr Aumann and American Thomas Schelling shared the 2005 Nobel prize for economics for their work on "game theory", the science of strategy that attempts to determine what actions rival groups should take to secure the best outcome for themselves.

Mr Aumann's work on parties which interact many times over a long period - so-called repeated games - showed that peaceful cooperation is often an equilibrium solution, even where the parties have short-term conflicts of interest.

Despite his pessimism regarding Israel and the Palestinians, Mr Aumann, 75, suggested science could give insight into a conflict that has ebbed and erupted since the early 20th century.

"I do hope that perhaps some game theory can be used and be part of this solution," the white-bearded academic said in separate remarks by telephone to Nobel officials in Stockholm.

German-born Aumann lost a son who was serving in the Israeli army during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, aimed at crushing Palestinian guerillas.