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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (28825)	5/7/2002 10:28:09 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Even Arafat agrees, in his New York Times op ed piece, that the right of return issue can be handled "symbolically." Even the language of "symbolically" is an opening bargain chip. John, I know he said that. It was a ruse. The fact that you would consider believing anything Arafat said in his ghost-written New York Times op-ed shows why you do not understand what is really going on in Israel. Arafat is an absolute and consumate liar who has been talking peace and working for war for many years. Stop paying attention to what he says in English and look at what he says to his own people in Arabic. He has never even hinted at accepting less than full right of return, in fact, the PA has elevated the right of return to the top of its demands. The Makovsky article that ken posted sums it up: Arafat never told the truth to the Palestinian exiles who fled or were chased from Israel in 1948: that not even Israel's leading doves could accept their return to the country. To allow three million Palestinians to return to a nation of five million Jews and one million Israeli Arabs would be the death knell of the Jewish state. Arafat should have told the refugees to focus on finding new homes elsewhere or next door, in the new state of Palestine. But he lacked the courage to do so. This made compromise all the more difficult. As long as Arafat promotes war, not reconciliation, and refuses to mention any compromise in Arabic, it doesn't matter what he says in the NY Times. It's not as if his word meant anything to anybody, least of all himself.