It is Always Darkest

 by Ami Isseroff

A bad time in the Middle East, as usual. Springtime for extremists, Winter for peace and decency. Three days of riots and violence, with no end in sight, are a bad way to start the Jewish New Year. They may be the death knell of any hope for peace.

The riots were sparked by the visit of opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount. Sharon must have known what his visit would cause, but he didn't care. Making a political point, and taking percentage points in the polls from Ehud Barak, are more important than human life it seems. The Palestinian leaders who organized the demonstrations must have known where they would lead, but they didn't care either. The Palestinian police and security people in plain clothes who participated in the riots and brought real guns, didn't care either. Like the riots in May, but even more so this time, more than a few Palestinian "demonstrators" had automatic weapons. People who come to a demonstration with an AK-47 are not citizens expressing their opinions.

The Israeli government must have known what had to happen. However, they could not find a way to prevent Sharon from visiting the temple mount, and they didn't bother to find a better way to deal with riots then the infamous rubber bullets. Nor has any Israeli government, over many, many years of conflict, made any serious effort to educate troops to spare the lives of innocent civilians.

Ariel Sharon knew what would happen, as he must've known what would happen when he allowed Christian militia to enter the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon and massacre Palestinians on a large scale. Even in opposition, Sharon has managed, as he did in Lebanon, to bring about another tragedy for Palestinians and to involve all of us Israelis in it. A little child, not bothering anyone, not armed, and not throwing anything at anyone, was killed by Israeli troops, among other victims. His father was wounded, an ambulance driver was killed trying to save them, but more than a child was killed. The hope for peace is being killed before our eyes.

Israelis should have no illusions about who is being blamed for the riots, not just by Palestinian and Arab sources, but by the U.S. press as well. The name of Ariel Sharon does not arouse sympathetic vibrations in the psyche of the American press. The sight of a helpless child being gunned down could not be ignored.

True, as many will hasten to point out, Arik Sharon should have the right to visit the Temple Mount if he wants to. However, peace-loving people make many compromises for the sake of peace in the Middle East. I should have the right to drive down the main street of the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Meah Shearim in Jerusalem on Saturday, but I choose not to exercise that right. If I did, I mightn't live to tell about it.

The events, or similar ones, have a kind of tragic fatalism to anyone who is familiar with the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The mechanics of Middle Eastern politics ensure a competition between extremists to determine who is the most faithful to "the cause" on either side, This ensures that matters will always be decided according to the most extreme positions. Sharon has to bring about elections quickly, because, as he already knew by Thursday, rival Likud leader ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyahu will not be tried for bribery due to insufficient evidence. If elections are delayed, there will be primaries in the Likud, which Nethanyahu would most likely win. At the same time, Sharon had to bolster his popularity in the polls, where he lags behind Barak and Nethanyahu. What better way to do so than to demonstrate his loyalty to the holiness of Jerusalem and the temple mount? What better way to embarrass Prime Minister Barak and the peace process than with a series of bloody riots that would surely be triggered by such a visit? Sharon knew, of course, that he could count on Palestinian extremists, just as anxious to sabotage the peace talks, as his allies.

General Sharon has won a great victory for the Likud and extremism, and incurred a great defeat for peace and for Israel. The Palestinian extremists have won their point too. The violence demonstrates that Israel's hold on the territories, and Israel's ability to uphold the temporary arrangements of the Oslo accords, is increasingly untenable. It is not the guns of the Palestine Police that are hurting the Israeli cause, as much as the guns of the Israeli soldiers who killed a little child and an ambulance driver.

In the Middle East, however, it is always darkest before it gets darker. Very soon, there may be elections in Israel. Very probably, a government headed by Ariel Sharon or Benjamin Nethanyahu, with a solid right-wing majority and a mandate to take a hard line will be elected. Public opinion on the Palestinian side is similarly hardening. Soon the brief sunshine of the Oslo Peace Process, flickering and uncertain, may be snuffed out for good. Night will descend once more on us. If that happens, the numerous opponents of the Oslo accords and the peace process, all of the self-righteous intellectuals and "Zionists" and "Palestinian Patriots" who have been cranking out the litany of hate for all these years, all members of the unholy alliance, can rejoice in their "achievement." All of those who have helped fuel the fires of hate will achieve their goal. The Palestinian refugees will rot in their camps for another generation and Israelis can say goodbye to a future of peace and prosperity in our life times.

PeaceWatch - other articles