Abbas has a chance to prove his mettle now. He's won one of those non-elections, now he gets to prove whether or not he and his fellow Palestinian leaders deserves the confidence of his people. Will he keep talking out of both sides of his mouth or will he enforce law and order? He's being challenged. If he will treat terrorists as criminals and arrest them, put them on trial fairly, and enforce the law, then maybe Palestinian Arabs will start to prove that they are serious about peace with "Palestinian" Israel.
If the Arabs become serious about living in peace with their neighbors, then the long conflict can end. I know that many ordinary people who want it to end. Do they have the courage to actually end it? In order for it to -- in fact -- end, the people of the area, especially Palestinians, have to become a people of law who genuinely are in submission to what is right; and they have to recognize that peace is right. When war genuinely ends, then violence is no longer sponsored or condoned by the State. When the Arabs stop teaching anti-semitism, stop teaching fanciful lies and incitement, then peace has a chance.
And that is a worldwide matter. Some of the Arabs chose to declare war on the US in September 2000. They have a ton of excuses, but their central excuse is that somehow the West, the US, Israel, are the cause of their troubles. It seems to me that at this point the Arabs are the cause of Arab troubles, just as all of us are responsible for our part in our own troubles everywhere. Maybe Abbas realizes this. Maybe he'll have the courage to confront it and be a genuine father to his people.
Arafat was not a father to his people, he was a traitor to them. He preferred war to peace, he preferred stabbing people in the back -- especially his own people -- to rule of law or facing things up front, he prefered hate and martyrdom to doing the will of the unified divine or submitting to reality. And he went to his grave a triple failure. He had a different face for everyone.
Posted by cholte at January 14, 2005 06:01 AM