Today's Jerusalem Post carries this remarkable op-ed by leftist Israeli media personality Matti Golan (past editor-in-chief of Haaretz and of the business newspaper Globes, currently running a current affairs show named "Documedia" on Israeli TV).
When instructing the IDF, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that the army could do anything and everything – except harm Arafat. The question is why? [...]The Left's knee-jerk reaction is to automatically oppose the idea of killing Arafat. That just proves how much the political division between Right and Left obscures clear vision. In fact, killing Arafat would serve the interests of the Left and actually run counter to the interests of the Right. Because those who want peace, those who want to return territories, should be working for a situation in which there is someone to whom they can be returned, someone with whom it is possible to make peace.
AT THE same time, those who do not believe in peace should be praying that Arafat lives forever.
Some say that killing Arafat would be immoral. Is that really the case? Isn't there something immoral about eliminating those who carry out the terror attacks while not touching the person who is dispatching the suicide bombers?
Is it justified to kill the messengers of terror without killing the person sending them? Wouldn't it be more moral to kill the person inciting and instigating the terror, the person who is sending people to commit suicide – before eliminating those who are incited and whose mission it is to blow themselves up?
If a democratic government were involved, it might be said that we do not have the right to interfere, that the decision regarding Arafat's fate and future should be left to his citizens. However, we are talking about a brutal dictatorship, one where no one dares to say what he really thinks, to say nothing of actually doing anything.
No country or person has the right to harm or attack a leader who has been democratically elected by his nation. Yet that right does not exist for a person who acts against the best interests of his people without even allowing them to express their views.
Still others argue that a slain Arafat will be considered a martyr, that the revenge will be cruel, that chaos will erupt. All these arguments are indeed valid – but only as long as Arafat is still alive. Anyone with a little knowledge of history and even more of human nature knows that there is nothing deader than a dead man.
In other words, the moment Arafat is no longer around, the fears and reservations about killing him will become largely irrelevant.
Life abhors a vacuum. After all the expected lip service has been paid, Arafat will become no more than a distant memory, and the Palestinian leaders will be preoccupied with fighting over the inheritance. Ultimately, one of them will prevail over all the others. Will he be better than Arafat? Perhaps not. But then again, perhaps he will be.
At least he won't be Arafat. At least, there remains the chance that he will be different.
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