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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Dec. 1, 2003 / 6 Kislev, 5764

Let's Make Believe

By Jonathan Tobin


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New 'peace' proposals ignore facts about Arafat and the world he rules


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Throughout the period of post-Oslo euphoria, the consistent theme sounded by Israel's left and their cheering section abroad was that "you make peace with your enemies, not your friends."


There was a certain logic to that; obviously, violent conflicts are not conducted by allies. The correct rejoinder was to state that one made peace with former enemies, not those still engaged in the business of war. But that point rarely made the same impact as the original slogan.


The intervening decade of Palestinian terrorism and broken promises took most of the air out of the peace-camp balloon. But the human capacity for holding on to hope, as well as for self-deception, should never be underestimated.


After three years of a bloody intifada, many on the left are back to their old tricks — we're hearing more and more about how Israel must make more concessions to achieve that elusive final peace with the Palestinians.


A so-called "Geneva Initiative" was recently reached by a few failed Israeli politicians with some of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's underlings. This ploy, paid for and promoted by the Swiss and other Europeans who are hostile to Israel, added on to the concessions offered by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. Even Barak has been quoted as saying that the thing is insane.


Another initiative is a petition promoted by Ami Ayalon, a former Israeli intelligence chief.


Both these efforts have gained the applause of the world and been relentlessly promoted by the Western news media.

DEATH, TAXES AND ARAFAT

The problem is, they are doomed to fail, just as the Oslo accords and all those plans put forward before and since were similarly doomed. If there is anything in this life that is certain, other than death and taxes, it's that Arafat and the empire of terror, corruption and hate he created will thwart all efforts for peace. All the goodwill in the world will not change this.

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Despite the hot air expended promoting the various plans, most people in the United States don't seem to understand the Palestinian leader too well.


That makes the new biography of Arafat by think-tank scholar Barry Rubin and his wife, journalist Judith Colp Rubin, Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography, essential reading for anyone hoping to comprehend the situation.


The couple, who has been studying their subject for decades, assert that the rejection of Barak's peace offer at Camp David in July 2000 is the key to t heir thesis about Arafat. Had his primary goal been to establish a Palestinian state and improve the situation of his people, then he would have said yes to that offer, or to the even better deal offered several months later at Taba, Egypt. But his refusal left them with no alternative but to conclude that he was primarily a "romantic revolutionary."


His career has been, they assert, a remarkable paradox. He has been the unchallenged leader of the Palestinians for decades; he also created the paradigm for modern terrorism, and managed the incredible feat of simultaneously carrying out mass murder while garnering sympathy from the Western press.


But his brethren have gotten little from this. The authors write that the "ultimate irony" of Arafat's life is that "the man who did more than anyone else to champion and advance the Palestinian cause also inflicted years of unnecessary suffering on his people, delaying any beneficial redress of their grievances or solutions to their problems."


The book shows that Arafat has repeated the same pattern in every chapter of his life. His goal is to give the other side the impression that just one more concession is all that's needed to achieve peace. After he receives that concession, he asks for more. He is a great negotiator, able to wear down his opponents. But the man doesn't know how to say yes, and has let every chance for a deal go by the wayside.


Part of this is his well-established habit of using front groups — which he pretends are radical dissident factions — to do the dirty work for him. That makes Arafat look "moderate," and literally allows him to get away with murder.


The most famous example of this was the so-called "Black September" terrorist group that carried out the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre. That pattern was repeated in the last three years with the establishment of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade to carry out terrorism against Israelis. Reputable news organizations still carry Arafat's condemnations of their atrocities without noting that he is the paymaster and ultimate commander of the group.


Despite the siege imposed on him by Israel, he has maintained his mafia-like control over virtually every aspect of Palestinian life. Those who imagine that an alternative leadership might emerge while he's alive are kidding themselves.

AN IMMOVABLE OBSTACLE

And that's where the latest talk about peace runs straight into a brick wall. As the couple's scholarship illustrates, Arafat is obsessed not with founding a nation, but by the fear that history will portray him as the man who "sold Palestine to the Jews." By that, he means legitimizing the Jewish presence in any part of the country, including Israel in its pre-1967 borders.


He is, therefore, the primary and immovable obstacle to any chance of peace. That means that the Bush administration policy seeking to eliminate him from the peace process is quite right. But given the fact that all proposed alternatives to him are mere feints, the administration's push for Israeli concessions to encourage such alternatives are as wrong-headed as their conclusions about Arafat are correct.


Someday, Arafat will die, and that may change things. It is possible that his successors will be better. But given the dynamic of hate for Israel and Jews that has governed Palestinian life — especially education — under Arafat, there is little reason for optimism. Arafat's legacy of rejectionism may well doom peace efforts for the foreseeable future and beyond.


That is not a comforting thought, and I don't doubt that many will continue chipping away at Israel's bargaining position to reach an objective that simply cannot be achieved. Such persons will accuse the realists of dooming the Jewish people to endless conflict. But the truth is, that choice has already been made by the other side.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. Let him know what you think by clicking here. In June, Mr. Tobin won first places honors in the American Jewish Press Association's Louis Rapaport Award for Excellence in Commentary as well as the Philadelphia Press Association's Media Award for top weekly columnist. Both competitions were for articles written in the year 2002.

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© 2003, Jonathan Tobin