What pro-Palestinian forces can do to help

What pro-Palestinian forces can do to help

By Gil Troy
Canadian Jewish News
January 6, 2005

Mahmoud Abbas has called for an end to the armed uprising. "The use of weapons is harmful and it should stop," the leading candidate for the Palestinian presidency told Ashar al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic-language newspaper. While Palestinians continue to demand Israel's destruction and while Abbas may lack the will or the skill to push his people toward accepting Israel's existence, this bold statement nevertheless challenges pro-Palestinian forces throughout the West. The time has come for the Palestinians' supporters to repudiate terrorism clearly and unequivocally.

Yasser Arafat's decision in September 2000 to lead his people away from the Oslo negotiations and back toward terror launched a two-pronged assault against Israel. As suicide bombers targeted restaurants, buses and seders throughout Israel, an intellectual intifadah assailed Israel's legitimacy throughout the world. The United Nations continued its decades-long obsession with the Jewish state, while journalists, professors and European politicians demonized Israel, ignoring its concessions during the Oslo peace process and escalating from criticizing Israeli policies and prime ministers to questioning Zionism itself.

Ironically, while most Jews and Israelis had stopped questioning Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian supporters repudiated Jewish nationalism. Led by Arafat, who pooh-poohed Jews' 3,000-year relationship with Jerusalem and the Holy Temple, many critics dismissed the 56-year-old manifestations of that historic nationalism, the State of Israel. Without applying similar criteria to artificial countries such as Pakistan, or even Iraq, critics singled out Israel's founding as illegitimate.

Along with this obsessive opprobrium toward Israel came an amoral myopia vis-a-vis the Palestinians. Cast as the victims in a conflict they initiated and could stop at any time, somehow Palestinians could do no wrong. A rationale of "by all means necessary" justified mass murder. Protesters in April 2002 deemed suicide bombers "Martyrs not Murderers." People who profess to love peace overlooked the militarization of Palestinian culture and the spread of the cult of suicide bombing - just as feminists overlooked Palestinian sexism, gay right activists overlooked the homophobia, and liberals ignored the many abuses during Arafat's dictatorship.

In such a searing conflict, awash with moral dilemmas and painful choices, no side is perfect. But part of the asymmetrical warfare of the past four years had to do with the disproportionate criticism heaped on only one combatant. Many Israelis certainly internalized the criticism, and some of the most vicious critics of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his policies have been Israeli journalists and academics. As Natan Sharansky notes in his magnificent book The Case for Democracy, a similar culture of dissent, of course, could not flourish among Palestinians, given the absence of freedom in Arafat's Palestinian Authority.

Over the summer, after thousands of casualties on both sides, a conventional wisdom about Arafat evolved - at least in North America. U.S. President George W. Bush had already soured on Arafat in January 2002, when the Palestinian president lied about the massive Karine A arms shipment from Iran. Back then, Bush's stance invited yet more mockery from sophisticates.

And while too many European leaders remained Arafat devotees until - and even after - his death, journalists began tracking the billions he stole from well-meaning countries who wished to alleviate his people's misery. Editorialists began doubting the wisdom of Arafat's tactics, as well as the sincerity of his occasional expressions of regret for suicide bombing. The faint breezes of optimism wafting through the Middle East after his death - and the bold statements of his presumptive heir - highlight just how destructive Arafat was.

Of course, it is too much to expect academics or journalists to admit they were wrong for enabling Arafatism. But is it too much to ask that now, when Palestinian culture is debating the efficacy of violence, when public opinion polls hint that doubt is growing around the culture of martyrdom, that Palestinian supporters weigh in?

For years now, Peace Now forces in Israel have said, "We support Israel, but we don't support the settlements or the occupation or Ariel Sharon." Isn't it time for pro-Palestinian forces - who did so much to encourage this recent violence by emboldening Arafat and his jihadists - to support Palestinians, democracy and peace. Apologies are useless and not likely. The best form of penance would be helping to solve the problem and reform the PA, rather than facilitating Palestinian delusions and violence.

GIL TROY IS PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT MCGILL UNIVERSITY. HIS LATEST BOOK, MORNING IN AMERICA: HOW RONALD REAGAN INVENTED THE 1980s, WILL BE PUBLISHED NEXT MONTH.

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