Patrick Buchanan’s recent call for President George Bush to take a serious stab at Arab-Israeli peacemaking was undoubtedly well meaning, but also somewhat na?ve. As a firsthand observer of the bitter conflict for over two decades, I can testify that it is far more complex and intractable than Buchanan seems to realize. Indeed, this is precisely why Bush’s predecessor in the Oval Office ended his intensive eight-year mediating endeavor with a woeful sigh, instead of a hoped-for Noble peace prize. Bush is better advised to take a long pause and ponder Bill Clinton’s peacemaking failure before plunging into the murky Mideast waters.
Buchanan begins his column by asserting that recent violence in Bethlehem and Jerusalem reveals that both places are “awash in hatred” between Palestinians and Israelis. Yet only one of the two scenes he described – the early December Jerusalem massacre of Jewish youth by two suicide bombers – was the product of blind hatred. The young, brainwashed Palestinian terrorists were certainly displaying almost unfathomable hostility by strapping rat poison and nail-covered bombs onto their lean bodies before committing mass murder in a crowd of teenagers in downtown Jerusalem.
The situation was just the opposite in Bethlehem. Israeli soldiers were only ordered to enter the town after an Israeli cabinet minister was assassinated in Jerusalem, and after Arab gunmen operating from Bethlehem and adjacent areas ignored government warnings and opened fire for the umpteenth time on nearby Jewish homes in south Jerusalem. As they entered the historic place of Christ’s birth, the Jewish lads were probably sighing as loudly as Bill Clinton. It was about the last place they wanted to be.
Many of the older soldiers and their commanders would have voted in the optimistic 1990’s for Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak. In doing so, they were supporting the Oslo “land for peace” process that both leaders advocated. They were thus expressing hope that soldiers like themselves would never again need to darken the doors of Palestinian towns. Like most Israelis, they are extremely sad over the collapse of their peace dreams, and angry at Yasser Arafat and company for launching a violent uprising in September 2000 that has left many dead and wounded on both sides. But despite this, they harbor no hatred for the Arab citizens of Bethlehem whom they realize are as much victims of Arafat’s folly as they are.
Pat Buchanan goes on to write that it is “now manifest that neither Sharon nor Arafat can make peace,” as if both men were equally the problem here. This ignores the fact that the former Israeli general has only been in office less than 10 months, while Arafat is an Oslo original. More to the point, Sharon only triumphed at the polls after the PLO chief threw mud in Barak’s face at Camp David in July 2000 (some of that splattered onto Clinton as well) and then completely broke his written commitment to settle all disputes with negotiations, not violence.
It was the deadly “Al Aksa intifada” that led to Sharon’s landslide election by exasperated Israeli voters. Indeed, they did not choose him primarily to resurrect the shattered Oslo accords, but to end the daily terror attacks and restore calm. If that difficult goal is achieved and sustained over a substantial period of time, Israelis will probably choose another “peace” candidate to resume the negotiating process.
Ariel Sharon is hardly looking for “a more pliable Palestinian partner who would accept peace on his terms,” as Buchanan and some other distant commentators imagine. He is searching for a way to ensure that cars full of kids and moms can drive home without being shot at, and that residents of south Jerusalem and elsewhere can go to bed at night without bullets or mortars landing on their homes. He is trying to find a method that will help teens standing in line at a Tel Aviv disco or eating pizza in Jerusalem avoid a sudden intrusion of unspeakable violence that leaves them six feet under.
Tragic events over the past few years have convinced most Israelis that the solution is not another treaty with Arafat or any potential Palestinian replacement. As I spell out in my new book, “Israel in Crisis,” a lasting peace is simply never going to be possible without the neutralization of radical groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and the PLO Popular Front. After all, they have loudly vowed to crush the Oslo process since the day they first heard of it. Unlike Clinton, Rabin and Barak, Sharon has always understood that the only realistic hope of reaching a permanent peace with the Palestinians is to end state sponsorship of these radical groups. In other words, violence will not cease as long as Iran, Syria, Iraq and other regional powers aid and abet the terrorist activities of local anti-peace organizations.
Israelis basically elected the portly, tough Sharon to be their Winston Churchill, even if few will admit it out loud. If Arafat cooperates, fine. If not, he will be swept off the stage as the current Israeli government does exactly what the Americans, of reluctant necessity, are busy doing – forcefully deal with the true obstacles to world peace and tranquility.
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