How to save the Middle East without killing anybody

Since he became prime minister in February 2001, Ariel Sharon has followed a hard-line attitude toward the conflict. He has refused to sit down and negotiate with Yasser Arafat, who is the Palestinian president and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, calling him "irrelevant." His response to virtually every terrorist incident has been military occupation of Palestinian territory, resulting in many unnecessary deaths. In short, he has taken a unilateral "eye for an eye" approach. Didn't all our parents tell us that we should not hit back because it was wrong? Didn't they tell us that two wrongs don't make a right?

Mr. Behm is right, however, in his strong condemnation of recent Palestinian acts of violence. As I stated before, neither side is without culpability. Terrorist attacks of this sort are immoral and, just as important, ineffective. When the lessons of history are considered, we learn that violent actions of this sort rarely bring about any real change. Indeed, as we learned on the morning of Sept. 12, 2001, when thousands of new American flags began to appear on cars and buildings, violence more often steels the resolve of the people being attacked. The Israelis had six million of their people imprisoned, tortured, and brutally slaughtered in the worst atrocity in human history. And they lived to tell about it. They are not about to back down in the face of stones and car bombs.

If Palestinians truly want an independent state and peace with Israel they must stop the bombings and take a queue from Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. They must exercise mass, nonviolent civil disobedience. How would our perception of the Israel-Palestine conflict change tomorrow we woke up to images of Palestinians sitting in front of tanks posed to enter their land? This is the only way for the Palestinians to obtain the international support they need. It has the added bonus of not costing lives in either side.



Timothy Ryan is a freshman who has yet to declare a major