Overwhelming frustration with a tattered peace process has led many of the million Israelis, who demonstrated their moral integrity in 1982 while protesting horrific massacres of Palestinian civilians, to vote on Tuesday for the very man who was held responsible for them - Ariel Sharon.
He is a figure akin to nothing less than the dreaded anti-Christ to every Arab in the world. Due to his murderous endeavors in the Arab world, his name is synonymous with butchery, with bloated corpses and disemboweled women and dead babies, with rape and pillage and murder. We all must put the hope for peace in the Middle East on hold for now. Sharon is too laden with blood to fly with dove's wings. Under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, there will only be more tragic losses for the Israelis and the Palestinians.
I grow pale thinking about Sabra and Chatila - two words that are on the minds of every Arab at this moment. They are the names of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon that were inundated with innocent blood 18 years ago. Ariel Sharon orchestrated the invasion of these refugee camps in Lebanon with his Lebanese Christian allies which led to the violent deaths of two thousand Palestinian men, women and children. They left old men cut to pieces strewn among the garbage, pretty young girls with their guts hanging out of their split stomachs, unborn babies' heads littering the blood-soaked earth. These massacres will never be forgotten. They haunt the collective Arab psyche and Ariel Sharon has remained the central target of hatred of the Arab people since these massacres and his many other Arab-killing projects. This man will not bring about peace. He is the antithesis of peace.
I knew a long time ago what the Israeli election results would be but I cried anyway on Tuesday. Oh Israel, why have you given up on peace with the Arabs?! My head spins in anguish with thoughts of how the Israelis mistakenly feel they did not have a "partner in peace" with the Palestinians. I agonize thinking about how the Israelis had been on the right track to an agreement with the Palestinians before they threw their hands up in the air in despair. Today the Israeli and Palestinian people are as far away from peace as they were 30 years ago. Yes, Sharon talks of peace, but I assure you he will not deliver. He has thrown the Israelis and Palestinians off the course to peace into a downward spiraling maelstrom of frenzied madness - probably war. The Israelis do not deserve this and the Palestinians certainly do not.
Barak was not an attractive alternative but he had the right idea. I do give him that credit. He was crafting a peace deal based somewhat on Israel's legal and moral obligations towards the Palestinian people. He didn't succeed because his offer had too many holes that would have left room for another Palestinian uprising in the near future. This had to be avoided at all costs for the sake of the Israelis and Palestinians. However, his peace was not based entirely on international legal principles and recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. That is why his peace was not accepted by the Palestinians. It was not because the Arabs do not want peace that they scoffed at the offer. They were looking for a just peace - nothing more and nothing less. There will never be peace any other way.
It is out of frustration and a feeling of betrayal that the Israelis have elected Ariel Sharon as their new prime minister. Of that fact I am very well aware. The Israelis have suffered immensely throughout the peace process. They feel that the Arabs do not really want peace because they refused what Israel considered an immense amount that was offered to them by Barak. Israel feels betrayed. They look to Sharon to "impose" a "peace" on the Arabs now as if that were the only option left. The idea of what this may be sends a shudder through my soul.
What the Israeli people need to be reminded of though is that a peace with the Arabs cannot be wrought by a man who does not believe in the end of an oppressive occupation, a man who plans on expanding illegal Jewish settlements on land that is legally Palestinian, a man who refuses to recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.
Israel, you will have peace one day. You can have peace and we Arabs will be your partner in peace. We don't want to fight you. We just want our rights and a homeland for the Palestinians who have suffered immensely for 52 years. Don't give up on a real peace as you seem to be doing now. Do not support Ariel Sharon in his endeavors. His efforts will only divide us further. Give us a just peace, recognizing all our legitimate, legal rights. End the occupation and you will live in your glorious country forever in tranquility, or at least in a much better and safer state than you have been for the past 52 years.
Dina Karam is senior majoring in sociology. She is President of the Arab Students Association.
