Wars are fought so men can make peace. They cannot be fought for their own sake. Societies at war that do not recognize the opportunities for peace endanger their very existence and assuredly condemn their people to endless misery. That is why the Palestinian attacks upon Israeli targets since the election last week of Mahmoud Abbas are so wrong.
Here, for the first time in a long while, is the first real chance to end the bloodshed and misery. It may not succeed. Ariel Sharon plays a long game and, all his life, has been a hard-line Zionist. It is hard to believe he is a peace-maker. That, however, is not the point. Here is an opportunity and it should not be destroyed out of hand by yet more violence.
Those Palestinians who sympathize with the latest attacks, on the basis that they are justifiable ripostes to continuing Israeli oppression and targeted assassinations, should pause and think. Israel suffers no bad consequences from Palestinian reprisals. All attacks are branded as terrorism and used to justify the harsh occupation. The only people who endure true hardship are the Palestinians themselves, as the physical isolation of the Gaza Strip rips another shred out of the tattered local economy.
The lust for vengeance, the desire to strike back is, at this moment, however understandable, the most misguided of emotions. The widespread popular support for the militants should be withdrawn if all that these hard-liners can do is undermine the new Abbas administration and slay this hope for peace at birth. Nor is it simply peace that is at stake here. The long-term cohesion and stability of the Palestinian state, fragile enough as it is now, is on the line. The Palestinian electorate overwhelmingly chose Mahmoud Abbas to lead them. The militants simply do not have the right to hijack the reins of power.
And if this new opportunity for peace is lost, if their new leader is humiliated and shown to be powerless, where are the Palestinian people heading next? Does anyone seriously imagine that Israel can be defeated militarily? Even the most savage of Palestinian attacks actually amount to mere pinpricks. Is it not seen how the Zionists use each new assault as a justification for yet further persecution and harsher subjugation in the occupied territories?
Honest men who have supported the militants must take stock of where they are currently being led. If the popular groundswell of electoral support for Mahmoud Abbas can now turn toward the militants and demand they suspend their war and give peace a chance, only the most unreconciled of hard-liners will refuse to listen. What has been heroic about the Palestinians has been the way that, despite overwhelming odds and in the face of incessant degradation, they have, as a people, refused to be cowed by the Israeli occupiers. However, heroes can make peace as well as war. Now is the time to rob Ariel Sharon of further excuse for oppression and the theft of Palestinian land by challenging him across the negotiating table to make a just and lasting peace.
