SPECIAL COMMENTARY

Why Arafat Won't Compromise

IV

Barak told him to skip the vision
thing and get down to practicalities.
e are currently witness-
Arafat, however, had the last word:
ing the reprise of the
"Anyone who does not understand
ancient midrash that
what Jerusalem means to me is an
relates an argument
impractical man."
between Ishmael and Isaac. Both
Thus did a Moslem leader lecture a
claimed to be the true heirs of the
Jewish prime minister — descendant
Divine promise of the Land to their
of unbroken generations
father, Abraham. And both
who directed. their every
understood that the issue
prayer to Jerusalem — on
revolved around who was
the preciousness of
willing to sacrifice more for
Jerusalem.
the Covenant.
Ishmael boasted that he
Lost Connection
had submitted to circumci-
One could take a cynical
sion when he was 13 years
view of the importance of
old, not at a mere eight days.
Jerusalem in Arafat's eyes.
Isaac replied that he would be
After all, as Daniel Pipes,
prepared to offer himself on
JON ATHAN
editor of the Middle East
an altar. That, says the
ROSE NBLUM
Quarterly, has conclusively
midrash, was the prelude to
Spe cial to
shown, Jerusalem occupies
the Binding of Isaac (the
the Jew ish News
a very minor status, at
Akeida).
most, in Islam, and is not
For the moment, it is the
even mentioned in the
Arabs who have accepted the role of
Koran.
Isaac.
But there is something much deep-
At Camp David, Israeli Prime Min-
er going on here; The Arabs have con-
ister Ehud Barak asked Palestinian
tempt for those who have lost all con-
Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat
nection to their past, and to the his-
what he really wanted in Jerusalem.
torical sense of their peoplehood.
Arafat replied by describing his vision
Salah. Tamari, a former Palestinian
of traveling unimpeded to Jerusalem,
terrorist told Israeli journalist Aharon
the capital of the Palestinian state.
Barnea of the complete transformation
he
underwent in an Israeli prison.
Jonathan Rosenblum is New York-
While
in prison, he had despaired of
based Am Echad's Israeli director
any hope that the Palestinians would
and a columnist for the Jerusalem
one day realize any of their territorial
Post. He can be reached via e-mail
dreams, and so he was ready to
at amechad@isdn.net.il

Jerusalem

We All Make
A Difference

Your Insight article ("Opportunity
Found," Aug. 18, page 35) about
Michael Traison's helping a 17-year-
old Muslim boy and his sister to get
an education in the United States was
terrific in itself.
The chain of participants indicate
how wonderful people get involved to
help those of other faiths and ethnic
backgrounds locally and elsewhere;
there is hope for our world. Most acts
of lovingkindness [gemilut chasidim]
never get noticed and certainly do not
get the publicity", they deserve.
The reward is knowing that you
yourself have made a difference in
helping complete God's creation.
(GP-1 put man on this Earth for this

purpose!)
Keep printing such stories; they will
help us all to do better — to do the
right thing. These acts will help build
bridges between diverse people, all cre-
ated in the image of our mutual God.
What more could God ask of us?

Arnold Michlin
Waterford

How Strong Is
His Character?

"Moral Authority" was printed in bold
letters on the cover of Aug. 11, a qual-
ity repeatedly applied to Joseph
Lieberman ever since the senator
became Vice President Al Gore's run-

LETTERS on page 41

renounce the struggle.
Then, one Passover,
he witnessed his Jewish
warden eating a pita
sandwich. Tamari was
shocked, and asked his
jailer how he could so
unashamedly eat bread
on Pesach.
The Jew replied: "I
feel no obligation to
events that took place
over 2,000 years ago. I
have no connection to
that." That entire night
Tamari could not sleep. Yasser Arafat
He thought to himself
"A nation whose members have no
connection to their past, and are capa-
ble of so openly transgressing their
most important laws — that nation
has cut off all its roots to the Land."
He concluded that the Palestinians
could, in fact, achieve all their goals.
From that moment, he determined
"to fight for everything — not a per-
centage, not such crumbs as the
Israelis might throw us — but for
everything. Because opposing us is a
nation that has no connection to its
roots, which are no longer of interest
to it." Tamari goes on to relate how he
shared this insight with "tens of thou-
sands of his colleagues, and all were
convinced." -

Intellectuals' Goal
The severance of connection to a
Jewish past is one of the chief goals
of the branja (clique), which, as
alarmingly described by Yoram
Hazony in his book The Jewish

State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul
dominates Israeli intellectual life.
The branja's influence is felt in every
sphere of Israel — education, the
military and the judiciary.
In the eyes of our intellectual elites,
Judaism itself has become an enemy,
because Jewish history and the age-old
Jewish sense of ourselves as one people
gave legitimacy to the idea of a Jewish
state. And they believe that the state, a
colonial enterprise, conceived in sin,
founded upon outdated concepts of
national character and mission, is a
militaristic oppressor of indigenous
peoples.
For members of the branja, giving
back Judea and Samaria is not a
painful step necessitated by the desire
for peace, but a welcome thing in its
own right, for it destroys our link to
some distant tribal past. Whether con-
sciously or unconsciously, they recog-
nize the connection between the Land
of the ancient kingdom of Judea, and

.

Judaism and our identi-
ty as Jews.
Everything that binds
us to our past must be
destroyed. Thus Shu-
lamit Aloni, as educa-
tion minister, vehe-
mently opposed trips to
Auschwitz for Israeli
high-school students,
lest they foster feelings
of national identity.
One of the chief
architects of the Oslo
process told U.S. Sen.
Daniel Moynihan (D-
N.Y.) six years ago that
Israel would have to prepare its people
over the coming years for painful con-
cessions — the abandonment of set-
tlements, Palestinian statehood and
control over areas of Jerusalem. That,
our leaders have done brilliantly.
Over the past six years, there has
been a massive shift in public opinion:
The Likud position of today is the
Pea c e Now position of six years ago.
Had Ehud Barak spoken openly a year
ago of making the kind of concessions
he was apparently prepared to make at
Camp David, there is no question he
would have been defeated overwhelm-
ingly.
But, said the Oslo architect, the
other side also needs to prepare its
people. They must know that there
will be no recognition of a right of
return, no . Palestinian sovereignty over
the Old City and they must recognize
Israel's right to exist.
The danger, he said, is that only
one side will undertake its responsibil-
ities while the other will continue to
educate its people that all its maximal
demands are within reach, while
preparing them for war.

Holding Firm
And if that happens, the side that
failed to educate its people in the
necessity of compromise will view its
adversary as having surrendered, and -
will thus be emboldened by the
prospect of eventual victory.
That is precisely what has hap-
pened. Barak went to Camp David
with compromise offers that would
have been unthinkable mere months
ago.
But Arafat held fast. And then
came the American bridging propos-
als, which started from the point of
Barak's offers and required - Barak to
offer yet more. Yet Arafat stood firm.
He has reached the same conclusion
as Tamari:
The Jews are surrendering. El

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