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Jerusalem – Some weeks ago, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported an interesting story on a long and winding street that crosses Arab, Bahai and Jewish neighborhoods in Haifa. Until 1948, the road was called El Jabel. But after the War of Independence, the street’s name was changed to U.N. Boulevard, in appreciation to the international body that voted the establishment of the state of Israel.

When in 1975 the United Nations passed a resolution comparing Zionism with racism, the Haifa municipality decided to rename the street Zionism Boulevard. But a longing for the name El Jabel seems to have been there all over those years. Last month, an Arab council member resurrected a 7-year-old demand to return the street to its previous Arab name.

In any other country, this would be considered a minor municipal issue, but not in Israel. In fact, this incident reflects on the delicate fabric of inter-ethnic relations in the Jewish state. The Jewish character of the state has triggered, unavoidably, a set of inequalities and also has led to instances of discrimination.

Nonetheless, the Arabs of Israel have been granted civil rights and individual liberties, unprecedented perhaps for an ethnic minority so closely connected to, and identified with, enemy countries.

Just one example

In the 1999 elections, an Arab ran for (prime minister Azmi Bishara, of «I do not object to all of Israel becoming Palestine fame). Besides, Arabs are exempted from national duties such as army service; they fall on the Jewish majority.

Between 1948 and 1967, the Arabs of Israel went through a process of Israelization by which they basically became loyal citizens of the state. Ever since, however, they rapidly have gone through a process of Palestinization, evidenced by an ever greater and stronger sense of national and emotional identification with their Palestinian brothers.

The commemoration of their Naqba (catastrophe) — held since 1997 annually on May 15, the anniversary of Israel’s founding -and the boycott of the past elections are signs of increasing national alienation. But the Al-Aqsa intifada probably altered for a long time Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. Then, Israeli Jews were shocked to see rioting Arab mobs chanting «Itbah el yehud!» (slaughter the Jews) as they attacked Jewish drivers and burned Israeli flags. That they behaved this way at a time when the Palestinians had launched a violent revolt did not contribute much to substantiate their later claims that theirs had been a peaceful protest against alleged state abuse and discrimination.

This minority’s anti-Jewish animosity has been reflected especially through the representatives it voted into Parliament, who have been giving alarming expression to their national stand. These MPs may refuse to celebrate their own country’s Independence Day but have no qualms whatsoever about celebrating anniversaries of Israel’s enemies, as it became clear when some of them – Ahmed Tibi, a former advisor to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, and Hahem Mahmeed – participated in a Syrian Independence Day ceremony marked by Druse from the Golan Heights.

Sallah Tarif, a minister in the Sharon government, said: «I am in love with Assad,» during a 1997 visit to Damascus. In a January 2001 interview granted to Palestinian TV, Tarif wished the best of health to Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin. He also criticized the Israeli police for shooting at «people who were just throwing stones.»

Another MP, Abdel Malik Dahamashe, last April sent a letter of condolence to President Bashar Assad over the deaths of Syrian soldiers after an Israeli raid into South Lebanon – showing the address as being «Nazareth, Palestine.» In March, he interrupted a Parliament session about the Temple Mount, heckling the speakers and claiming the site was completely Islamic.

For his part, MP Taleb a-Saana sent a message of support to iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his struggle «against criminal Israeli aggression.» Not to be left out, MP Mohammed Barakei compared Ariel Sharon to Slobodan Milosevic, called for the Israeli elected leader to stand trial for war crimes and sent a letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee requesting they strip Foreign Minister Shimon Peres of his award. Why? For cooperating with Sharon.

«Is a Galilee Liberation Organization yet to be heard from?» Haifa University Professor Steven Plaut has asked. The pace at which the Arab community is radicalizing itself leaves no doubt as to the answer.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.

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Jerusalem – The modern Czechoslovakian state arose in 1918 on the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its population of almost 15 million was made up primarily of two Slavic nationalities, the Czechs and the Slovaks, plus other minorities such as Jews, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Poles and Germans. The Germans formed 23 percent of the population and were concentrated on the Sudeteland area. Most Sudenten Germans identified with neighboring countries and were against being incorporated into the new state.

Although it was considered an irredentist minority, the Sudetens were granted all civil rights of a democracy. They weren’t on par with the Czechs in terms of job opportunities in the civil service or armed forces, but overall they were a free and tolerated minority despite their strong identification with adversarial states.

Xenophobic leaderships in the neighboring countries had an impact on the Sudenten minority. The Nazi Party was banned in Czechoslovakia, but its surrogate, the Sudeten German Party, commanded significant popular support. Resorting to violence and intimidation, the SDP soon became the sole spokesman for the Sudeten Germans. It established a paramilitary organization called The Heimatbund, which later developed into the Sudenten German Freikorps, a terrorist movement made up of 34,000 Germany-based Sudeten refugees.

After Hitler came to power, Germany channeled funds to the SDP and gave it political support. The Reich quickly understood that by manipulating the Sudetens’ plight, turning it into a self-determination issue, he would enhance his chances to annex Czechoslovakia. Never mind that the Germanic people already had realized self-determination in Austria and Germany; the tactic worked. At the time, Czechoslovakia’s President Eduard Benes warned the world: «Do not believe it is a question of self-determination. From the beginning, it has been a battle for the existence of the state.» He was vastly ignored.

As the SDP leader, Konrad Henlein, toured Europe demanding his people be granted independence, Berlin contributed to the diplomatic offensive with strong complaints about Czechoslovakian discrimination and intolerance and the need to protect the Sudenten minority from alleged state abuse.

European states exerted pressure on Prague to agree to the Sudentens’ nationalistic demands. This gave birth to a proposal of limited autonomy, called the Carlsbad program. The Reich instructed Henlein to raise his demands if and when Prague accepted this program – Hitler needed the negotiations to collapse to have an excuse to launch a military attack and seize the small neighbor. As Germany got ready for war, it accused the Czechs of being an impediment to peace in Europe.

When, under international pressure, Czechoslovakia accepted the Carlsbad program in mid-1938, a revolt «erupted» in the Sudeteland. SDP members rioted, attacked and shot at the Czech police and civilians. The ensuing chaos elicited international attention and, in September, an agreement was reached in Munich: The Sudeteland would be transferred to Germany.

«From now on, I have no more territorial demands in Europe,» Hitler said.

And then-Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain prophesized: «This will be peace for our time.»

As soon as those lands became German territory, Hitler suppressed the Czech and Slovak languages, confiscated property and expelled the 750,000 Czechs living there. Later, Germany started to agitate for the «rights» of the remaining Germans in Czechoslovakia proper, and by March 1939, the Führer had gained control of the rest of the country. The international community didn’t come to Czechoslovakia’s help. On March 16, Prague fell, and the Czech state ceased to exist.

Any similarity with Israel’s security predicaments, its increasingly radicalized Arab minority, PLO terrorism, Palestinian self-determination, Arab diplomacy, the Oslo accords, the Al-Aqsa intifada and Western appeasement, is purely coincidental.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.

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Jerusalem – At the insistence of internationally acclaimed conductor Daniel Barenboim, the Israel Festival decided in April to finance a concert of music that will perform Richard Wagner’s Die Walkure in July at a prestigious venue in Jerusalem. Unsurprisingly, this created a domestic stir.

Performing Hitler’s favorite composer in Israel has long been an issue. In 1981 the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra chose to play as an encore Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. After conductor Zubin Metha announced the selection, some left the auditorium, including two violinists. An usher who apparently had not understood Metha, jumped onto stage as soon as he recognized Wagner’s notes and dramatically removed his shirt exposing scars from World War II. The concert was interrupted. It took 10 years for the Israel Philharmonic to make a new attempt at playing Wagner in the Jewish state, to no avail.

Then last October, the Rishon Letzion Orchestra won a legal battle over the issue and was able to perform Wagner’s Siegfred Idyll. Again, the concert was not immune to incidents. Some people left the audience in protest, whereas a Holocaust survivor sounded a noisemaker he deliberately had brought to disrupt the performance.

Now, after pondering «seriously and with great sensitivity» this controversial subject, the Israel Festival decided to delight Israelis one more time with the works of the genius from Bayreuth.

Supporters of the public playing of Wagner’s music in Israel base their case on well-known grounds:

– That many great artists whose works are accepted here are well-known anti-Semites. True, but Wagner was not just another anti-Semite; he advocated a final solution for the Jewish people. In his 1850 treatise Judaism in Music, he claimed that the racial inferiority of the Jews rendered them incapable of any musical contribution. In 1881, when 400 Jews were burned alive in a fire at a Vienna theater, thus reacted the composer: «All the Jews should be burned up at a performance of Nathan.» When czarist soldiers massacred Jews that same year, Wagner said: ‘Their laudable action genuinely express the power of the people.» Although he died before the advent of Nazism, his ideology shaped Nazi thought. Should the Jewish state honor this man’s art?

– That «the man should be separated from his work.» Wagnerites point out that by appreciating his music they are not celebrating Wagner’s anti-Semitic ideology but rather paying tribute to a creative genius whose art became associated with the Nazi Party. However, it is impossible to separate the two in this case. As Efraim Zuroff, head of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has pointed out, Wagner expressed his anti-Semitism through his creations; that’s why the Nazis made him their cultural icon.

– That based on the intellectual fetish of modern liberalism – absolute freedom of expression – Israeli orchestras have the right to express themselves at their own discretion. If this expression offends a third party, so be it. Freedom of expression trumps absolutely everything.

At issue, though, there are two sets of rights: (1) the legitimate right of an individual to play or listen to the music he or she enjoys, and (2) the right of another individual not to be offended by that music. So maestro Barenboim wants to play Wagner’s music? Let him do it, but not in Israel.

The question whether or not Wagner’s work should be performed in Israel goes far beyond «freedom of expression.» Indeed, to force this kind of extraordinarily sensitive issue on grounds of some absolute personal right to artistic enjoyment is the worst kind of abject insensitivity and collective selfishness.

So, dear members of the Israel Festival, when you all will be gladly listening in Jerusalem to the music of Hitler’s favorite composer, remember that many Holocaust survivors will feel betrayed and abandoned in their own homeland. Enjoy it.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.

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Collaborators with Israel are no longer thrown into snake pits but ‘sentenced to death in court.’

Jerusalem – The killing of «collaborators» by fellow Palestinians once again has gained notoriety. In the context of the current al-Aqsa intifada, at least seven Palestinians have been murdered already – either with their backs against a wall facing the rifles of Palestinian Authority «policemen,» or under the burning wrath of irregulars armed with pistols, axes and knives.

On Jan. 13, PA Minister of Justice Freih Abu Meiden gave crude expression to this reality when he declared that «anyone we lay our hands on will not merit the mercy of the Palestinian people or the mercy of the Palestinian law.» Later that day, Palestinian human-rights organizations reported to Israeli television that Arafat’s regime had assembled a list of more than 20,000 Palestinians slated for execution for collaborating with Israel.

Of course there is nothing new under the sun. This type of killing is as old as Palestinian nationalism itself. During the 1930s, then-Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, the most prominent Palestinian leader in British-ruled Palestine, imposed a reign of terror of such proportions that by the end of the decade, moderate Arab opinion in Palestine had all but disappeared.

In this period, thousands of Palestinian Arabs were exiled or murdered in a most brutal manner. Moreover, according to historian David Pryce-Jones, not all of those suspected of treason were immediately assassinated. Some were kidnapped, taken to the mountain areas under rebel control and there thrown into pits infested with snakes and scorpions. The bodies of the victims then were left on the city streets for days, after a shoe had been ceremoniously shoved into their mouths as a symbol of disgrace and an example to others.

During the first Palestinian intifada (from 1987 to 1993), masked activists from all PLO factions and Islamic groups killed scores of their brothers suspected of collaboration, often acting on mere rumor.

The mildest estimate puts the number of those killed during this period at almost 1,000. Such was their zealous devotion to the cause that Fatah activists persisted in murdering alleged collaborators to the point of disregarding orders from the Tunis-based PLO leadership at the time, which itself wanted to coordinate all political assassinations.

Collaborator killing did not vanish with the creation of the PA. During the first year after Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza and Jericho (May 1994) alone, 31 Palestinians suspected of being collaborators were murdered. In 1995, the PA established the so-called State Security Court, which has special jurisdiction over security offenses. As such, it functions outside the Palestinian Civil Court system. Collaboration is considered national treason by the PA, so it consequently falls within this court’s jurisdiction. The court provides no right of appeal «and thus operates in contravention of international fair trial standards» in the words of the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment.

The New York-based organization Human Rights Watch stated in a letter sent in 1999 to then-President Clinton that «trials in these courts are typically closed to the public, last a few hours and severely limit the defendant’s chances to prepare a defense. Sentences sometimes are issued just hours after the arrest of the accused.»

Sentences issued by the State Security Court, including life imprisonment and the death penalty, are subject to ratification or veto only by Yasser Arafat himself. Since its establishment in 1995, 33 death penalties have been issued, five of which have been carried out.

Of course, among the various categories of collaborators, by far the most despised group is made up of those Palestinians who sell land to Jews. Some are murdered extra-judicially, others are brought to trial under the terms of the 1997 Property Law for Foreigners. This anti-Semitic legislation effectively has made the PA one of the few entities in the world — since the fall of the Nazi empire — that mandates the death penalty for the sale of lands to Jews.

To say that the conduct of the PA with regard to collaborators is at odds with the Oslo accords and with international law – which burdens the PA with elementary norms of civilized behavior – would be trivial. True, the fact that instead of throwing collaborators to pits full of snakes, the Palestinian leadership now condemns them to death in trials «as short as traffic courts,» as journalist Helen Schary Motro observed, undoubtedly must be considered civic progress for the chaotic Palestinian society. Judged by less relative standards, however, this ongoing human-rights atrocity may be seen as revealing commentary on the true character of the future 23rd Arab nation in the Middle East.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.

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New Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has a unique opportunity – or challenge – to put Israel back on track.

Jerusalem – I am looking at the picture of Shalhevet Tehiya Pass, the baby girl gunned gown by Palestinian terrorists this week, and I can’t make sense of this atrocious crime. She is sitting on her father’s lap, her parents are smiling; she is looking into the camera with a typically innocent baby face. Shalhevet was killed in her mother’s arms at a kindergarten in Israel.

Her senseless death epitomizes the ugliness, hatred and bestiality of Palestinian terror: Shalhevet didn’t die as a result of a lost, ricochet bullet; this 10-month-old baby was deliberately murdered. How can anyone, even a combatant, raise his rifle, see the face of an infant through his telescopic lens and shoot to kill? I wonder what thoughts must cross the mind of such a man the second before he pulls the trigger that will cut off a baby’s life. Did he sleep later that night? Does he feel anything when his eyes rest on other infant-born of Palestinian mothers? Is he tempted to repent? Obviously not.

Throughout its relentless march toward independence, the PLO repeatedly has targeted children. «There are no innocents; if you are alive, you are involved. Innocence is meaningless,» said Ghassan Kanafani of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine decades ago. He then added rhetorically: “What does the life of an Arab child or a Jewish child matter if their death will help bring about the revolution?»

Three decades later, the «Palestinian revolution» has taken yet another life. The current mini-war (referred to worldwide as an uprising, or intifada) already has resulted in almost 70 Israeli and hundreds of Palestinian deaths. This time, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had no choice but to respond harshly. Otherwise, I fear we would be witnessing the beginning of the end of the Jewish state. Indeed, a nation that tolerates such an atrocity is doomed to extinction. This is a radical statement, in total harmony with the radical situation we are facing.

There must be limits to the current Israeli policy of accommodating to «political correctness.» During the Oslo process, every Hamas suicide bombing was explained away as an act committed by «the enemies of peace»; halting the peace talks would have been tantamount to surrendering to terror, so went the mantra.

In the context of the current hostilities, Israel’s need to exercise restraint is justified on similar pragmatic grounds: Yasser Arafat orders these horrible killings to precipitate a brutal Israeli response that will at least invite international intervention and at best lead to a regional war («at least» and «at best» as measured in Arafat’s terms). In light of this equation, and especially considering that an Arab Summit was taking place in neighboring Amman at the time of Shalhevet’s murder, logic would dictate that restraint continue as the name of the game. Not quite.

No longer feared

For too long already, Israel has been regionally perceived as a weak state. The day that Jordan expelled Israeli journalists who were covering this past Arab Summit from Amman, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa announced: «This shows no one is afraid of Israel anymore.» Indeed, Israeli weakness invites aggression.

Before the advent of the Oslo era, the Jewish state was hated in the Arab world – but it was feared, too. Now, after eight years of the peace process, Israel is still no less hated, but is no longer feared as well. In the face of a lax and hesitant Israel, the mood in the Arab street (particularly after the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon) is one of pride, victory and self-confidence. In light of this reality, the name of the game should be deterrence, not restraint.

The current manifestation of Palestinian hostility is compounded by troublesome scenarios:

• Internationally, Israel does not enjoy the support of the Western world. The Jewish state is consistently vilified by human-rights organizations, the media, left-wing intellectuals and the United Nations when it adopts any measure in response to Palestinian aggression.
• Domestically, Israel’s people are divided. Half of the population is disoriented, confused and shocked after Arafat, the man they trusted and upon whom they projected their own peaceful aspirations, betrayed them – violently. The other half watches in pain as their predictions, sadly, materialize.

Sharon, the man who emerged victorious from the so-called national camp, has a unique opportunity – or challenge – to put Israel back on track. Ehud Barak failed; Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn’t have had the gall to do it.

«Only Sharon,» as the Likud election slogan promised, «will bring peace.» I will be more than happy if he brings security alone. For the sake of Shalhevet’s parents, and all the other grieving mothers in Israel, I hope he will.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.

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Jerusalem – Palestinian terror traditionally has led Israel to adopt countermeasures varying in degree of force, risk and controversy. By tactically blending terrorists into the civilian population, Palestinian terror organizations too often have placed Israel in the uneasy position of having to risk civilian life and injury when targeting the terrorists.

This vintage tactic was common during the Lebanon War and has been typical during the current Al-Aqsa intifada. But whether Israel responded indiscriminately, as in the 1996 Kfar Kana incident, or by exercising discrimination, as in its current policy of liquidations, the international community consistently has erupted in a massive outcry.

Most notable are the various human-rights organizations that argue that by deliberately assassinating terrorists, Israel is violating one of the most basic human rights: the right to life. Given that this right is ensconced in several important international documents, among them the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Israel is thereby presented as a violator of international law. This is pure nonsense, for such a fundamental international norm also clearly encompasses the right of Israeli citizens to live free from the threat of death or maming.

Admittedly, the right to self-defense may necessarily entail killing and injuring other human beings. Israel always has had to walk a fine line when dealing with terrorism, balancing the imperative effectively to fight it with the restraints of international law and morality.

But the same dilemma has preoccupied mankind for millennia. Using Roman concepts of war as well as the ethics of early Christian moralists, St. Thomas Aquinas articulated an idea in the 13th Century that today we call the Modern Just War Doctrine. This doctrine delineates the framework within which war itself is morally permissible and then draws perimeters around ethical war conduct. Since no fair-minded observer would dare question Israel’s need to exercise self-defense in the face of Palestinian aggression, let us focus on the second part of the doctrine.

As Georgetown University professor William O’Brien explains, war-conduct doctrine comprises two central elements: proportion and discrimination.

• A military action must be proportionate to both the strategic and political ends involved. Assuming that Israel’s primary goal is to quell Palestinian terror and motivate the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table, then the targeting of certain terrorist leaders for assassination is appropriate. In fact, the IDF has been highly measured in its responses. If not, Ramallah would be no more than a rubble today.
• Discrimination is also particularly well served by Israel’s assassination policy. Considering the other available options – all collective actions, such as indiscriminate shelling of population centers or economic closures of entire areas – the chosen course of selective liquidation should be commended for its precision and restraint.

Assassination itself is not necessarily a crime, depending on the context — especially when that context is retributive. Punishment, as Purdue University professor Louis Rene Beres points out, is actually a sacred principle of international law. But «no crime without a punishment» takes on particular validity when the crime involved is as egregious as terrorism.

As Beres reminds us, when the Nuremberg Tribunal was established in 1945, it affirmed that «so far from it being unjust to punish [an offender], it would be unjust if his wrongs were allowed to go unpunished.» By standards of international law, terrorists are known as common enemies of mankind. Defending the right to life of this kind of criminal when he is devoting himself to denying others the ability to exercise that same right simply doesn’t follow. In fact, it is obscene.

With remarkable hypocrisy, the same enlightened members of the international community that urged Israel to take “risks for peace» and embark on the dangerous Oslo road – whose final destination was war -condemn Israel for defending itself against the Palestinian violence that they are always so willing to justify. This, and not Israel’s legitimate assassination policy, is the true immorality.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.

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Jerusalem – «I am not an easy negotiator, but my word is my word, and my red lines are clear». So pronounced Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon to top Palestinian negotiator Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) right after Sharon’s dramatic election victory.

In a nutshell, this is what the recent elections were all about: red lines. With their resounding Yes to Sharon, Israeli voters sent an unequivocal message to the world: We do, after all, have our limits.

The specific parameters are well-known:

• No Palestinian right of return.
• No division of Jerusalem.
• No abandonment of the strategic Jordan Valley.
• No negotiations under fire.

These issues were consensual in Israeli society just a short while ago; Oslo changed all that. Take for instance Jerusalem. In 70 CE, the Jewish people lost its beloved capital to Roman Emperor Titus.

As commentator Sarah Honig once observed, it took him four legions of the formidable Roman army to capture Jerusalem; yet 2,000 years later, the leader of the sovereign Jewish state was ready to give Israel’s capital away to Yasser Arafat — for the sake of a dubious peace agreement — without a fight. That leader, Ehud Barak, did so with such amazing irresponsibility that he elicited the only logical response any mature people with even a little remaining historical perspective and national pride could have produced: an unequivocal rejection of that leadership. On Election Day, Barak was brought down in shame as Israelis showed themselves to be in favor of real peace, and in opposition to Oslo’s false promises.

The Labor Party shares a different interpretation of the vote. With vintage arrogance, for example, Shimon Peres said that had he been given the chance, he could have defeated Sharon (Peres has never won a single electoral contest). Other Laborites claim that, in fact, Barak the prime minister, not the peace-camp platform, lost on Election Day.

Myths die hard. Predictably, the Israeli Left seems unable to admit that it has been wrong all along since 1993. Oslo was built on a fundamentally wrong conception – that the Arab- Israeli conflict is about territorial rather than existential disagreement; thus the formula «Land for Peace.»

But as Barak’s magnanimous offers at Camp David later would prove, no amount of Israeli concessions can ever satisfy the PLO. Columnist Charles Krauthammer put it this way: The Palestinians do not want their own state; they want their neighbor’s state. What is there to talk about when Israel still doesn’t appear on a single official map issued by the Palestinian Authority?

Will things change? If the initial Palestinian reaction to Sharon’s victory is any indication, there is not much room for optimism. Their welcome message to the new prime minister included the following: a kind letter from Arafat, a bombing in Jerusalem, a Sharon-effigy burning ceremony in Sidon, mortar-shelling of settlements and this statement from Fatah: «If the Israelis think that Sharon will bring them security, we say loudly that Israel will never have security.» As if all this evidence of goodwill weren’t enough, the official Voice of Palestine called for a «Day of Rage,» which was obediently heeded. Days ago, a Palestinian bus driver deliberatedly overran 20 Israelis, killing eight. Arafat dismissed this deed as a car accident.

At a basic level, the Palestinian leadership now faces two elementary options:

• They can start to exhibit some degree of realism, reasonableness and a modicum of flexibility, which together may pave the way for the «historical reconciliation» that everyone longs for.
• Or they can stick steadfastly to their Utopian position, maintain their al-Aqsa intifada in the territories and keep shooting at Israeli civilians while pronouncing the word peace to the Western media, United Nations officials and European diplomats.

If the Palestinians choose Option 2, they should recall that their intransigence with Barak brought them Sharon, a man Arafat feared would «deal with us in a crude military manner.»

By choosing the path of violence, Arafat and his henchmen should bear in mind that they risk finding themselves, once again, sailing back to Tunis. Only this time, Sharon will be waving bon voyage from Gaza instead of Lebanon. In sum: «Mr. Chairman, everything is in your hands.»

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Jerusalem.