Scoundrel in Israel Arafat, not Sharon 
Chicago Sunday Times
October 3, 2000

The rioting in Israel is Ariel Sharon's fault, right?

Wrong.

From the start of the rioting, complaints have been heard 
about the visit by Israeli opposition leader Sharon to the 
Temple Mount in Jerusalem last week. But however provocative 
that was, it should be remembered that the visit was a 
nonviolent act. Sharon threw no stones, ignited no Molotov 
cocktails, fired no shots. Those came from the Palestinians. 
The responsibility for the killings--including the 
heart-wrenching death of that 12-year-old boy recorded by 
a TV camera--and injuries in this terrible violence falls 
on Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians.

In visiting the Temple Mount, Sharon was making a statement 
about the importance of the holy site to Jews and about the 
opposition by him and many Israelis to Prime Minister's Ehud 
Barak's willingness to relinquish some sovereignty over 
Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Political statements inspire 
passions, but that is not a reason to avoid them. In America's 
long history, anti-war protesters, civil rights advocates and
labor activists launched demonstrations knowing they would 
provoke a violent response. The nonviolent assumed the high 
moral ground over the violent. Arafat could have responded to 
the visit by saying he was negotiating with Barak, not Sharon.

Some will argue that Sharon intended to incite violence. If so, 
then Arafat and other Palestinian leaders played fools in giving 
him what they think he wanted. For the rioting only underscores 
the sad but inescapable reality that it is the Palestinians who
consistently have thrown up roadblocks to peace. A few weeks ago 
at Camp David, Barak offered to make concessions on land, 
sovereignty and Jerusalem that would have been unthinkable only 
months ago. Yet Arafat dismissed them out of hand. It was those 
Barak proposals that sent Sharon to the Temple Mount, a place
holy to Jews for centuries before Christianity or Islam existed. 
His message was that Barak's peace plan won't work. 
The Palestinians agreed--in no uncertain terms.