A Legacy of Hatred
Sat., November 13, 09:54 AM
The following is not meant to be a scholarly treatise. Rather it is the result of watching a lifetime of violence without hope of any end to it.
Yasser Arafat is dead. Are we supposed to pray for his soul, or even assume that he had one? How do you forgive someone who not only killed your children but forced you to kill his?
For three generations Yasser Arafat taught hatred. He taught children to hate rather than to attempt negotiation, and he taught them that even after the state of Israel was an accomplished fact that they couldn’t change. He encouraged young people to strap explosives to their bodies and set off their human bombs in heavily populated areas, in the hope of killing a few more Israelis.
Arafat made enough promises of peace and compromise to obtain a Nobel Peace prize, but he reneged on those same promises. It’s hard to figure out his purpose – to look statesmanlike to the world after he had lost control of the younger generations, or to galvanize those young people into angry riots that brought more violence yet. Either way, there is still no peace. Egypt and Jordan were able to negotiate like the civilized nations that they are, but the Palestinian group has no comprehension of this process.
After Arafat’s death, I heard an interview with a senior Palestinian official. His final statement? “…the Israelis killed him.”
And the hate goes on.
