Arafat, Sharon stand in way of peace

Green is a second-year medical student.

By Jonas Green

Only two years ago the Middle East seemed to be on a promising
course toward peace. But renewed violence has upended that peace,
with each side failing to see the depravity of the acts it commits
in the name of justice. Resolution will require strong leaders,
worthy of respect and capable of commanding deference.

Instead, we have two men who are not merely inept as
peacemakers, but actually responsible for the bloodshed. Each has
antagonized peace; neither has upheld it. They play a high-stakes
poker game, using human chips, aimed solely at calling the
other’s bluff.

Yasser Arafat’s name sends chills down the spines of
innocents whose relatives were blown up in buses, Olympic athletes
who survived Munich, and Palestinians who dared speak out against
Intifada.

However, it’s not without good reason that Ariel Sharon is
reviled by Palestinians. His feigned interest in peace
doesn’t fool victims (or students) of his history. He is a
ruthless expansionist who gave no thought to disrupting legitimate
government attempts to broker negotiations, invaded Lebanon without
authorization, and allowed vengeful bandits to slaughter his
prisoners.

These men are not qualified to negotiate peace because they are
bitter, and their actions bespeak their hunger for revenge. Arafat
may have more blood on his hands, but Sharon has no less around his
shoes.

Arafat has defined himself by what he fights against, not what
he stands for. His organization, Al Fatah, has raided Israel from
Jordan for 45 years, masterminded terrorist activities and offered
military training to other international terrorist groups.

Although he initially opposed an independent state for Israeli
Muslims, Arafat later formed the Palestine Liberation Organization,
whose goal is Palestinian independence through terror. They were
shunned, even by fellow Muslims, and they moved to Lebanon in 1971
because Jordan evicted them. Most prominent among the PLO’s
actions are their role in the 1972 execution of Israeli athletes by
the Black September terrorist group at the Munich Olympic Games,
and their hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro (also
killing wheelchair-bound American passenger Leon Klinghoffer and
dumping his body overboard).

Arafat coordinated the first Intifada (“holy war”)
because of a car accident in which four Arabs died. He literally
organized the violence, specifying violence days. The Intifada
involved 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 by hand grenade, 600
with guns or explosives and vile executions for perceived
infidelity. More than 1,000 of Arafat’s own people died. His
principles are clear ““ he cares more for objectives than
people, even if they’re his followers.

Sharon shows a similar disdain for human life. In 1982, as
Minister of Defense, he invaded Lebanon all the way to Beirut
without the consent of Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He then
turned a blind eye when Lebanese Christian militiamen entered the
containment camps at Sabra and Chatila, established for Palestinian
civilians, and slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians. Sharon was
removed from office for “indirect responsibility,” and
that should have ended his career.

However, Sharon reentered the political scene as Housing
Minister in the early 1990s just as peace first appeared on the
horizon. By endorsing the development and expansion of Jewish
settlements in the West Bank and Gaza he undermined the
conciliatory atmosphere early on.

Then in 2000, as Prime Minister Ehud Barak was making momentous
steps toward peace, Sharon interfered to upset the balance. He made
a trip to the Temple Mount, a place not only revered by Muslims as
the site of two of the world’s most sacred temples, but one
that religious Jews normally refuse to visit. (The Rabbinical
Council of Judea, Samaria and Gaza proscribed against religious
Jews visiting the site until a few days after Sharon’s
visit). Moreover Sharon ascended the Mount with an excessive
military guard. Palestinian rioting ensued, peace talks were broken
off, confidence in Barak’s leadership crumbled ““ thus
begot the present Intifada.

At one point during the mid-1990s, both men projected harmonious
images. Unfortunately, in the years since, it has become clear that
these masks were donned for political expediency ““ Sharon
needed to be considered peaceful enough to become Prime Minister
and Arafat hoped for international support of a Palestinian
Authority.

Arafat’s true self was exposed when he walked away from
the 2000 Camp David summit without specifying his reasons. Some
speculated that control of the Temple Mount or the issue of
Palestinian right of return was the cause. More likely, Arafat was
scared. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak made significant
concessions, he naively overestimated Arafat’s character.
Barak’s proposal would have fulfilled Arafat’s
purported lifelong goal of a Palestinian state, but with acceptance
of this, his career and probably his life would end.

Arafat knows he is not a leader, but a fighter, and without
anything to fight against he could no longer lead the Palestinian
people. Even if Hamas extremists, dissatisfied with anything less
than all of Israel, failed to assassinate him, his life would have
lost meaning. Gone would be the wealth, international attention and
unification of his people behind a common cause. So he summoned
crocodile tears, knocked over his milk and fled the table.

Additionally telling is Arafat’s tacit encouragement of
the renewed Intifada while vociferously denying responsibility or
the ability to quash it. Whether unwilling or unable to control
violent Palestinian insurgents, he is not qualified to negotiate
for peace. The question of his will appears to have been answered
by his recent purchase from Iran of 50 tons of weaponry which was
intercepted by Israel.

Sharon’s role is no less antagonistic. He now hides his
vindictive aggression beneath Bush’s global anti-terrorist
cloak, but his facade will soon crack. In recent weeks, he has
authorized the destruction of Palestinian lodgings, approved the
use of live ammunition by riot police, cordoned off Palestinian
homelands in a manner redolent of Apartheid South Africa, allowed
shelling of Palestinian hospitals and police barracks, broken off
contact with the Palestinian authority and ordered Arafat’s
headquarters destroyed.

Curiously, while Sharon’s bullheaded insistence on his
right to travel freely is what led to the mess, he now confines
Arafat to his quarters. All this in the name of peace?

Perhaps Sharon’s position is designed to bring about
Arafat’s ouster. If so, his plan is ill-conceived. Arafat
came to power by uniting several nationalist anti-Israel Arab
factions against a common cause. He is now reassembling this caucus
which had otherwise begun to fragment.

One thousand humans have died in this new Intifada, and it has
only persisted one-third as long a time as the first. The moment is
ripe for change. But both sides need new leaders: individuals more
worthy of trust, less outfitted with venom, with fewer crimes on
their record and a willingness to forgo animosity in the interest
of reconciliation.