inion
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Dry Bones
Two Courts, Two Balls
A
fter seven years of trying to cooperate on
ways to resolve their differences, the
Palestinians and the Israelis have each
chosen in the last four months to walk on
separate paths.
Ultimately these paths must join again. In the
meantime, each side faces its own challenges, affect-
ed naturally by the other's decision, but ultimately
both Israel and the Palestinian must
resolve their own problems internally.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has the
most immediately monumental task — to
re-envision what his nation can be now and to build
a broad acceptance of that vision.
In voting emphatically to oust Ehud'Barak as
prime minister and replace him with Ariel Sharon,
Israel has correctly declared that it will not negotiate
anything but mutual security procedures until
Arafat publicly and effectively stops the violence
that began Sept. 28. That is just the first step Arafat
must take if he wants a true nation that coexists
with Israel. He must also find the strength to stop
the mullahs who insist on preaching death to all
Jews. He must shelve the irredentist textbooks that
teach Palestinian youngsters a one-sided and
demonstrably wrong history of their people.
And he must accept the counsel of the Arab lead-
ers in Cairo and Amman when they tell him that
neither they nor the other Arab states (save perhaps
unpredictable Iraq) will provide troops for a war or
new funds to underwrite the endemic corruption
that has blocked a meaningful Palestinian economy.
When he has done those things, he can legiti-
mately dream again of returning to a bargaining
table that could hold any of the astonishing
concessions made at Camp David.
Eyeing The Center
In the meantime, Sharon must deal with an
almost equally challenging assignment: to build
a national middle ground for Israel, one that
forbids the extremists of both the left and the
right to dictate the state's policies and practices.
Israel does have a real center in
both Zionist and religious thinking,
one that Sharon can communicate
freshly and — given his enormous
record of national service dating back to 1942
— credibly.
The "peace-at-any-price" faction has been
silenced for now by the gunshots at Gilo and
blood of the Israeli reservists killed in Ramal-
lah, which means the timing is right to rein in
the "seize the hilltops" settlers. No less neces-
sary is the need to quell the religious strife that
encourages some Jews to deny respect to oth-
ers. Sharon has a brief political honeymoon to
voice his vision of a unified state in which gov-
erning from the middle actually works.
He will need a ton of tactical brilliance to
assemble that centrist government founded
on what Labor and Likud really agree on. But
if he succeeds, he can afford to ignore the
clamoring of the dozen splinter parties, then
arrange a general election that would sweep
most of them out of office and give a solidly
based government opportunity to tend to the
internal problems of the economy, social welfare and
the secular-religious divide. Only then would he be
empowered to return to a bargaining table with a
Palestinian leadership that has tended to its own
internal woes.
EDIT ORIAL
Related coverage: page 22
The controlling metaphor from the Oslo peace
process envisioned a single ball bouncing back and
forth from one side of the court to the other. Now
there are two balls and two courts — and a whole
world watching from the grandstand. El
Prisoners Of Hope
New York
D
wring the build-up to the Israeli elections
over the past month, I was often asked
what it would mean for the peace process
were Ariel Sharon to be elected prime
minister of Israel. The underlying assumption of the
question was that a victory for him would close the
door to peace with the Palestinians and the rest of
-
the Arab world.
But as nervous as General Sharon's election
understandably makes us, we in the American Jew-
ish community need to avoid closing the door on
the new prime minister. There's no time for the
honeymoon traditionally accorded a newly elected
leader, but there is surely reason to suspend judg-
ment for a while.
I was, in fact, encouraged by some of the views
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie is president of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations, the synagogue arm of
the Reform movement of Judaism.
expressed by Sharon during his campaign regarding
the future of negotiations with the Palestinians. In a
speech to the Council on For-
eign Relations, he stated that,
once elected, he would "conduct
immediate negotiations" with
the Palestinians.
Poll after poll has shown that
the American Jewish communi-
ty supports the peace process,
based on direct negotiations. We
will support those efforts of
RABBI ERIC H. Sharon just as we supported the
peace-oriented efforts of Ehud
YOFFIE
Barak and the three prime min-
Special
isters of Israel before him:
Commentary
Binyamin Netanyahu, Shimon
Peres and Yitzhak Rabin. They
all realized one basic and simple truth: that a negoti-
ated agreement, based upon mutual recognition, ter-
ritorial separation, and security assurances is the
only answer .to the conflict tearing apart Israel and
the Palestinians.
We need to be reminded of the important divi-
dends peace has brought to Israel: a stronger econo-
my with greater foreign investments; the lowest level
of terrorism in Israel since 1967; an improved stand-
ing in the international community; a stronger
strategic relationship with the United States; and the
end of the burden of occupation. Only an equitable
solution to the conflict can ensure that these trends
continue and accelerate.
We have all watched with sorrow the eruption of
violence that began in late September. We must take
note, with profound sadness, of the depth of Pales-
tinian hatred for Jews and Israelis and the ease with
which Palestinians have resorted to violence and ter-
ro r.
We are wise enough to know that the fault is not
entirely theirs. After Oslo, governments of Israel of
PRISONERS OF HOPE on page 33
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2001