Let's be honest, peace is nowhere in sight
By Zev Chafets
Recent predictions that the death of Yasser Arafat will usher in a new era of Palestinian peacemaking are, I regret to say, a joke.No regret if you call it by its true name: heartbreaking
After the death of Arafat... Mahmoud Abbas... agreed to hold free and fair elections
So Abbas fled Gaza...that he would follow in Arafat's footsteps.
Sound biblical?
This is the same "right" that killed the Oslo peace process.
Not to mention Sharon's refusal to share Jerusalem.
And exactly what was it that caused Israeli terrorists to assassinate Rabin?It demands that Israel agree to absorb the millions of Arabs now living in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and around the world who trace their ancestry to refugees of the 1948 War of Independence.
Meanwhile, even as the Oslo peace process was in progress, Sharon opened new settlements.
And, how many Arabs, living in the elsewhere's mentioned even want the "right of return". Nobody knows because no survey has been done.
If the Israelis had bought the land they coveted there would be no wrong to right.
For Israel, the Palestinian "right of return" means something different: annihilation.
Forgive me if I'm wrong but I know I heard Arafat's compromise on this issue and the only remaining issue was the control of Jerusalem which Israelis are not willing to share.
Barghouti, a leader of the armed intifadeh, is in prison where he is serving five life sentences for murder. Since his victims were mostly Jews, this has not hurt his popularity among Palestinians — or their Arab and European supporters.
And for a broader view: neither did is stop Nelson Mandela.
Barghouti...will be a powerful force in any future Palestinian government. So will Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Elections are scheduled for Jan.9.
And will there be armed Israeli troops at the voting booths?
Perhaps Abbas will live long enough...terror and deeply committed to the goal of dismantling Israel through demography.
Arafat's legacy is convencing the Palestinians to accept a two state solution.
So much for the new era of Palestinian peacemaking.
And the era of Israeli peacemaking?
Pardon my pessimism,
No. But the first time I read an olive branch in our wordcrafting I will laud you.
but I'm pretty sure that on Jan. 10 the world will awake, look at the Palestinian election returns and say, in the immortal words of Redd Foxx's parrot, "Damn, that was a short day."
In a "the world" consisting of only the US and Israel, perhaps this is a true picture of Jan. 10th.
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