The Oslo concept was (almost) perfect: Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat would become responsible for such matters as health, education, employment and transportation, and would simply cease to be a terrorist. In general, the leaders of countries, especially if they are Nobel Peace Prize winners to boot, are never terrorists.

However, the devil refused to take a holiday: A year after Arafat signed on the dotted line on the White House lawn, solemnly pledging to never ever resort to terrorism, buses began exploding in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Hadera and Afula. Yet then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and then foreign minister Shimon Peres, despite the hundreds of killed and wounded Israelis, remained hostages of the concept: Arafat, a subcontractor operating without the benefit of either the Israeli High Court of Justice or B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), would take care of the terrorism (after all, he received thousands of rifles from Rabin and Peres for that purpose - not for the purpose of killing Jewish settlers on West Bank and Gaza Strip highways). Peres, who succeeded the assassinated Yitzhak Rabin as prime minister, furiously rejected the solid evidence supplied by Israeli military intelligence that Arafat had, in fact, given the green light for the terrorist attacks on Israeli buses. The prime minister claimed that the "purported" evidence was biased and subsequently lost the general election.

Eight years later, and after 11 months of endless terrorism, Peres' continued faith in Arafat is assuming clearly pathological proportions: The id?e fixe that Arafat, even after all the abominable terror attacks, is still a partner for peace and is still the only person with whom Israel can negotiate, is now requiring Peres to engage in the trivialization of Palestinian terrorism. Even he can no longer deny the fact that the person with whom he and the late Yitzhak Rabin shared the Nobel Peace Prize was directly involved in the terrorist attacks on Tel Aviv's Dolphinarium and in Jerusalem (as well as in all the other deadly operations carried out by Palestinian terrorists); thus Peres and his associates must downplay the emotional, moral and political impact of Palestinian terrorism. Peres still speaks very guardedly and he still only hints at what is on his mind. You still need a musical ear to penetrate the mists of his rhetoric. However, it is possible to distinguish that the "condemnation" is now coexisting - in the same breath - with the view that "this is not as terrible as we think." In other words, our "partner" is in a "no-alternative" situation. Furthermore, Israel has something to do with the creation of this "no-alternative" situation.

In light of this state of affairs, and in light of the "understanding" that is being expressed in certain circles in Israel, there is today not one world leader, with the (temporary) exception of American President George W. Bush, who rules out Arafat as a "partner for peace" because of the recent massacres. Even Pope John Paul II, from the Holy See on the banks of the Tiber - the pontiff who is the spiritual father of billions of Catholics - saw fit to host Arafat only a short time after the mass murder at the Dolphinarium and to greet the Palestinian leader as a distinguished head of state. Yet the government of Israel registered no protest. After all, how can the government protest - even if it wanted to - when this country's foreign minister, certain members of its parliament and various public figures and journalists zealously seek out Arafat's company, joking with him, being photographed with him and providing him with legitimacy while the photos of horror depicting the terrorist attack on the Dolphinarium are still circulating around the world?

If we remove Arafat from the stage, Hamas's spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, God forbid, will replace him - so say Peres and other persons with similar views. Peres and his cohorts are clearly demonstrating that, over the past 11 months, they have not remembered - and, what is most important, have learned nothing from - the events of the past. This is certainly a bizarre state of affairs. After all, according to their dialectic (that is, the dialectic of Oslo), a head of state can never ever act like a terrorist. And Yassin (or whoever else replaces Arafat) will have to worry about things like health, education, water and transportation, right? The answer is yes. And if Arafat's successor continues the terror attacks, Israel would be less hamstrung in its responses than it was during Arafat's regime, right? The answer is also yes. Yassin is certainly not the world's darling, and even the radical Israeli left feels no special commitment toward him. Thus, it is possible to imagine certain scenarios in which the quantity and "quality" (i.e., the lethality) of the terror attacks would diminish precisely because Hamas was in control of the Palestinian Authority, is it not? The answer is, again, yes.

When Hamas finds itself responsible for the lives of more than two and a half million Palestinians, it will also discover that terrorist attacks do not produce food, work, medical services or transportation, and that they similarly do not produce foreign aid from the Americans or even from the European Union. In such a situation, Peres and former justice minister (and key Oslo architect) Yossi Beilin would no longer be able to confuse Israelis as to the enemy's identity and intentions. If such a scenario fails to become a reality, the identity of the head of the snake will at least be obvious to everyone and will no longer be a matter for speculation. Then it will be possible to fight against this snake's head without any inhibitions or reservations. Since Arafat is unable to stop Hamas from carrying out its terrorist actions, Hamas, when it comes to power, will be forced to put the brakes on itself. Only the fanatics who are presently stage-managing the suicide-bombing terror attacks in the name of Islam will be able to find justification in the Koran for putting a stop to the attacks. Although objections would be raised by Islamic Jihad, its opposition would be crushed with a fist of iron, as only the fanatics of Islam (abundant examples can be cited all the way from Algeria to Iran and Afghanistan) know how.

The principal difference between Arafat and Hamas is tactics. Because of his position, his leadership and his sugar-coated utterances, Arafat is a thousand times more dangerous than any Hamas leader who may succeed him. It would therefore be in Israel's best interests for Arafat to step off the political stage immediately in order to spend his retirement years in Tunis. As long as he remains in power, and no matter where he turns, he will leave a trail of scorched earth behind him. Peres and the Labor party can be numbered among his victims. Arafat's terrorism will double, perhaps even treble, the clout of both the Likud and the other right-wing parties in the next Knesset. Nor will the other leftist groups that are so anxious to meet with Arafat be able to make a comeback. The terrorist attacks, the demonstrations supporting Arafat over Orient House and the cries for a boycott of the Jewish settlements at the very height of the attacks on the settlers will shrink these leftist groups as well.

The takeover of Orient House and its contents, with its childish raising of the Israeli flag over the Palestinian center, captured the world's attention and continues to provoke nearly universal criticism, anger and mockery. But the clumsiness, folly and anachronistic approach of the government's actions in East Jerusalem were exposed less at Orient House than in the closure of a much less colorful and almost anonymous institution: the Arab Chamber of Commerce, located behind the Rockefeller Museum.

This institution, which has been in existence since the days of the British Mandate and Jordanian rule over the city, always adapted its activities to the changing political reality. After the Israeli conquest of the city, when the need arose for an official Arab agency to mediate between Jordanian citizens resident in East Jerusalem and the Jordanian government, the chamber in effect turned into Jordan's consulate in Jerusalem. It provided notary-like authorizations, verified signatures on checks, matriculation exams, and export documents. It enabled the renewals of passports and Jordanian identity cards.

Its services were vital for the maintenance of a quasi-normal existence in practically impossible conditions and its activities were recognized and unofficially supported by both the Jordanian and Israeli governments, because it saved them both a lot of trouble. It was only the tub-thumpers of the right wing who criticized the Israeli government and Jerusalem municipality for the "flagrant violation" of Israeli sovereignty in East Jerusalem, for allowing "Jordanian inroads into the city."

Ater Jordan gave up its claim on Jerusalem and following the Oslo Accords, all civic powers (functional, not territorial) were transferred to the Palestinian Authority, including matters such as education, religious courts and commerce. This immediately had an impact on the lives of the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. These residents, of uncertain citizenship, became dependent on the PA in matters concerning their personal status because, for example, the religious courts and waqf Muslim religious trust are under the authority of the PA's minister of religion, while the Palestinian Education Ministry became responsible for the school curriculum, to provide school books and prepare teachers for the public municipal school system of the municipality headed by Ehud Olmert.

The chamber of commerce, like other public Palestinian institutions, became, of necessity, a body "affiliated" with the PA. And if that "affiliation" is a violation of the law, requiring its closure, then Olmert's own school system in East Jerusalem should be shut down, for it is also connected to the PA, without which he cannot maintain the schools of East Jerusalem. By the same token, the Israeli security services that are unable to maintain even a modicum of quiet in the city without cooperation with the Palestinian security services, presumably should be shut down as well.

Some have already pointed out that closing the Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem - though not all of them, only those with some propaganda value - was a flagrant violation of Israel's own commitment not only to guarantee their status but to encourage their activity. But it hasn't been emphasized enough how their existence is clearly in Israel's interest, since the alternative - granting Israeli citizenship to 210,000 Palestinians and their full integration into Israel - is not on anyone's mind, just as "it's unthinkable" to consider handing Arab neighborhoods to the Authority.

It's difficult to expect Israeli government ministers to weigh the situation rationally; they only know how to recite slogans about "Israeli sovereignty in the heart of Jerusalem" and the price of their folly will be paid by the Arab residents and the representatives of the government who come into contact with those residents. Soon, very quietly, all the institutions will resume their activity as a result of the demands of reality and the decisive fact that no power in the world can smash to smithereens a vibrant national community that has rallied around national, economic and economic institutions.

There's no doubt the Israeli government's moves in East Jerusalem - and not the PA's activities - are violations of the Oslo agreements; not merely of this or that article or clause but of the entire ideological underpinning of those agreements - formal recognition of the legitimacy of the national Palestinian collective.

The symbolic expression of that is not only in the removal of the PLO flag from the Orient House but in particular the seizure of the documents of the institutions that operated from the building.

The last time there was an attempt to capture Palestinian history was 20 years ago, when under the orders of Ariel Sharon, the Palestinian national archives were seized in West Beirut. It turns out that the prime minister has not learned a thing, and he's stubbornly insisting on reversing the wheels of history. And the most foolish excuse is that "it's the heart of Israeli sovereignty" - as if anyone can use force and steal national heritage to break a connection between a people and its national and religious capital.

So, now, the Israeli government, faithfully following the traditions of classic colonialism, is asking the Palestinian donkey to eat a carrot after it's been struck with a stick. Look, the mayor says proudly, I got millions to improve the infrastructure of East Jerusalem, proof of the "city's unity." In his eyes, the Arabs are but dust, whose symbols can be trampled upon and who can be seduced by sewage pipes. The whole thing could be dismissed with derision if these people weren't holding our fate in their hands.

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/8/346.htm