Measure Palestinian freedom,

... not summits

by Natan Sharansky

The death of Yasser Arafat has once again placed the search for peace at a crossroads. Ten years ago, policymakers took the wrong road, believing that peace could be made with a dictatorship. Today, we must instead embrace a peace process that is anchored in the expansion of freedom within Palestinian society.

The temptation to return to the Oslo formula will be very great. Today, many hope to identify a Palestinian strongman as quickly as possible who can prevent chaos, rein in the extremists, and reach a deal with Israel. Similarly, many view the upcoming Palestinian elections as an opportunity to legitimize a Palestinian leadership that could quickly be "strengthened" by Western and Israeli largesse.

This was exactly the misguided approach to peace that failed so miserably over the last decade. According to the logic of Oslo, a "moderate" like Arafat should be embraced and empowered by the free world so that he would be strong enough to fight terror and reach an agreement with Israel.

Unfortunately, little attention was paid to how Arafat ruled. In fact, far from being considered an obstacle to peace, Arafat's repressive rule was seen as facilitating peace. As prime minister Yitzhak Rabin put it only days after Oslo was signed, Arafat would fight Hamas "without a Supreme Court, without human rights organizations, and without all sorts of bleeding-heart liberals."

What was not understood then, or often even now, is that a non-democratic Palestinian regime will, by its nature, always threaten Israel. Non-democratic regimes always need to mobilize their people against external enemies to maintain internal stability. This is why the regime in Egypt, having lost Israel as a political enemy by signing a peace treaty, sponsors what is perhaps the most rabid anti-Semitic incitement on earth. That is also why the Saudi regime funds a Wahhabi fanaticism at home and abroad that is terrorizing our entire world. And that is why the Palestinian Authority used all the resources, not to improve the lives of Palestinians but rather to strengthen hatred toward Israel.

It is time to explore the road not taken, a road that could make all the difference.

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Comments

[Srishti]

I read about an interview of Pinkas, he former consul-general in New York on Jerusalem Post: "This(Israel) is a sovereign state. It cannot be run like a goddamn synagogue with every congregant having something to say." I am not Israeli or Jewish, but maybe a blogger is the best way to discover popular sentiment about this statement in Israel.