Dialogue: Peace possible if that is what Arafat wants

Israel has been left with no option but to act in self-defence against Palestinian terrorists and their infrastructure, writes RUTH KAHANOFF*.

The Herald editorial headlined "Israel had better tread carefully" did a great injustice to the battle for peace, which is also the battle against terror in the Middle East. It ignored important facts and distorted others.

Israel has proved itself willing to negotiate a fair solution based on United Nations resolutions 242 and 338. Renouncing terrorism and violence and accepting the principle of conflict resolution through negotiation and dialogue constitute the basic foundation of the process of historical reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians, which was launched and signed in Oslo in 1993.

Regrettably, the Palestinian leadership has violated this foundation repeatedly and systematically.

Israel has put aside memories and fears to strive for a just accommodation based on historical compromise. Only last year former Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David offered a far-reaching proposal that was commended by the whole international community; to relinquish all of Gaza Strip and 96 per cent of the West Bank, including uprooting scores of Jewish settlements from Jewish ancestral land.

It was President Yasser Arafat who rejected those proposals, and unilaterally terminated the negotiations, opting instead for armed struggle and terror. He has abrogated all the agreements he had signed. Israel has relied upon these in good faith.

The Palestinians could have had their state side by side with Israel long ago if they really wished it. Unfortunately for us all, and tragically for the Palestinian people, their leadership rejected any offer for a two-state solution and compromise.

They rejected the November 1947 UN resolution on the partition of Palestine into an Arab and Jewish state (several months later, assisted by five Arab armies, they invaded the young Jewish state, which barely managed to survive).

Last year, again, they rejected the sincere proposals by Mr Barak and President Bill Clinton. Instead, they turned back to armed struggle and incitement of hatred and terror against civilians.

President Arafat has allowed his territory to be a haven for the terrorists, who were free to plan and organise, to build their bombs and to recruit their bombers. This month's events provide a vivid example of a strategy adopted by the Palestinian Authority and its leader - employing terrorism on the ground while proclaiming its innocence in the diplomatic and media arena.

Sometimes widely publicised arrests will be carried out and then the terrorists will have free rein to attack again.

Israel has regretfully been left with no option but to take the responsibility into its own hands in self-defence and target terrorists and their infrastructure.

At the same time, it has reiterated its commitment to seeking peace and therefore accepted the Mitchell Report calling for a complete cessation of violence, a cooling-off period, confidence-building measures and return to negotiation.

All terrorist groups, including those mainly focused on Israel, should be targets of the battle against terrorism. There must be no moral and political justification for certain types of terror rationalised as "legitimate resistance".

Indeed, stopping terrorism is the key to peacemaking, not the reverse. Only then, with confidence restored, will there be a climate conducive to making the painful sacrifices for peace that will build a secure, peaceful and free future for both sides.

The conflict has caused terrible suffering to Israelis and Palestinians. Long-term resolution yielding security and a normal life for both parties lies only in a political settlement.

But this will require leadership that has so far, tragically, been absent on the Palestinian side - a leadership that will fight terrorism against Israel, will acknowledge to its own people and in its own language Israel's right to exist.

It must stop the incitement and hatred from media, schools and mosques. It must recognise the need for pragmatic compromise.

The only possible way to cause President Arafat to take action, to stop incitement that demonises Israelis and Jews, and to use what must be the highest proportion of armed security personnel in any regime worldwide (about 60,000 policemen) to thwart attacks on Israeli civilian targets is to apply international pressure on him to stop the violence, while exacting a heavy price when he fails to do.

Until then, Israel has a legal and legitimate right to defend itself. Israel has an obligation to protect the lives of its citizens the way any other responsible sovereign state will do.

Israel has the right to exist as much as any sovereign state. Tensions are caused not by Israel but by groups that refuse to acknowledge this fundamental right.

* Ruth Kahanoff is the Ambassador of Israel in New Zealand.

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