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Get the Message Across
David Horovitz

FOR MORE THAN 16 MONTHS of intifada confrontation, it has been Israel�s contention that Yasser Arafat has cynically manipulated the Palestinian public � failing to honestly inform his people that, at Camp David in July 2000, they were offered statehood on almost all of the territory they purported to seek, and instead whipping them up into a frenzy of anti-Israel hatred via his state-controlled media.

Why, then, would Prime Minister Ariel Sharon seek to deny the Speaker of the Knesset, Labor�s Avraham Burg, the chance to reach out to the Palestinian people by delivering an address to the Palestinian Legislative Council in Ramallah, as he has been invited to do by his Palestinian counterpart, Abu Ala? Surely this would represent a rare opportunity for an eloquent and passionate orator to set the record straight: to assure Palestinians, via their elected parliament, of Israel�s burning desire for peace and reconciliation, to highlight the terms that were offered in the past, to underline the basis for Israel�s sense that Arafat betrayed the Israeli and Palestinian populace by rejecting them.

Why, for that matter, did Sharon prevent a trusted former member of his own Likud party, Moshe Katsav, today Israel�s president, from making the same journey to Ramallah several weeks ago? The prime minister�s aides explained then that Katsav would have wound up making a fool of himself � delivering a plea for peaceful coexistence that would have coincided with Israel�s capture of the Karine A arms ship, the murderously tangible proof of Arafat�s duplicity. Not necessarily. Like Burg if he is permitted to deliver his address, Katsav, albeit in Arafat�s presence, would have been attempting not to win over Arafat, but to speak to ordinary Palestinians, to make plain how futile is this ongoing conflict, how terrible the loss of innocent life, how urgent the need to prevent further senseless bloodshed and return to the negotiating table.

Sharon has left Israelis in no doubt of the personal blame he attaches to Arafat for the descent into confrontation. And most Israelis share the assessment. He has even, gratuitously, lately framed the conflict as something of a personal vendetta � telling Ma�ariv in a late-January interview of his regrets that Israel didn�t kill the Palestinian leader in Beirut almost 20 years ago. But he has been vague and contradictory as regards the wider Palestinian leadership. On the one hand, despite Sharon�s avowal not to have anything to do with the Palestinian Authority until there was a week�s total cessation of violence, his aides, ministerial colleagues and son Omri have, with his express consent, continued negotiating with PA leaders. Indeed, he himself secretively hosted Abu Ala and two other top Arafat aides, in a meeting that had to be brokered directly with Arafat, at the Prime Minister�s Residence in Jerusalem on January 30

Yet, on the other hand, he thwarted Katsav�s initiative to meet with legislators, is attempting to block Burg�s, his spokespeople describe a prime ministerial strategy of �weakening� the entire Palestinian Authority, and the army is plainly pursuing such a strategy by targeting PA installations in its military responses to suicide bombings.

Israel under Sharon has determined that its security interests are best served, certainly for the present, by refusing to enter substantive negotiations with Arafat � a leader the government does not trust, and one who has refused to smash the terrorist networks dedicated to killing innocent Israelis. But it would surely be undermining those vital interests were Israel to destroy the entire elected Palestinian leadership and institutions of government � a recipe for anarchy in the territories and still greater loss of life on both sides.

Israel�s aim, rather, must be to foster Palestinian moderation, by distinguishing between the extremists who call for Israel�s destruction and those issuing credible calls for coexistence. Notably, Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan has now joined Arafat�s Jerusalem representative Sari Nusseibeh in taking a public position in favor of a two-state solution in which Israel�s demographic balance would not be upset by a huge influx of Palestinian refugees. (Arafat himself, in a February 3 article in The New York Times, more vaguely acknowledged the need to take Israel�s �demographic concerns... into account� when resolving the refugee issue. In the same article, he promised to �put an end� to the activities of �terrorist organizations.� If only.)

SHARON HAS HIMSELF STATED that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has no military solution, and that, ultimately, even Israeli hardliners will have to accept the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. That can only be negotiated with a credible Palestinian leadership. Israel�s fragile spirit of unity is also dependent on a widespread sense that, when the opportunity arises, the government will be prepared to return to the diplomatic process. If the perception grows that the prime minister is bent on avoiding a return to the peace table, bitter political divisions will quickly resurface, gravely weakening our national resilience. Is it mere coincidence that, precisely as some Sharon aides and military chiefs have hinted at plans for a full-scale military onslaught against the PA, the first substantial volleys of internal dissent have been heard � with dozens of reserve officers protesting Israeli policies in the territories and vowing not to serve there in the future, and the former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon asserting that too few soldiers are disobeying �illegal orders� and lamenting what he has called the numerous unnecessary killings of Palestinian children?

Israel�s policy must be to protect the lives of its citizens both militarily and by responding constructively to credible voices of Palestinian moderation. And it should seize every opportunity to ensure its message of reconciliation � the message it blames Arafat for failing to disseminate � rings out loud and clear across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.