Once a terrorist, always a terrorist

In my opinion, Yasser Arafat is no different than Osama bin Laden. The man may have been elected, but the legitimacy of that election (which was years ago) is just like the legitimacy of the ones that keep Asad of Syria or Hussein of Iraq in power still today. They are illegitimate and do not necessarily reflect the views of the people.

It has been proven by intelligence agencies that Arafat has given funding to terrorist groups and has not done enough to hinder such attacks as the one last week in Tel Aviv. He needs to be taken out of the picture because of his dishonesty. He cannot be talked to because he supports terror. He cannot be taken seriously because he speaks one way on CNN in English and another to his people in Arabic.

He was a terrorist when he was in Lebanon; he was a terrorist in Libya; and he continues to be a terrorist in his office in Ramallah. He doesn't even report facts straight.

Arafat was not born in Jerusalem as he tells the world. He was born in Egypt. Such a person cannot be trusted to negotiate issues which will ultimately decide the fate of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem was never, ever, in any way, shape, or form, a capitol of any Arab entity since the establishment of Islam. So to me, Arafat's desires to have the city serve as the Palestinian capitol are not to be taken seriously.

In fact, when Jerusalem was in the hands of Jordan before 1967, the Western Wall plaza served as a path for horse and carriage buggies that carried garbage through the city. I would not entrust Arabs to be in charge of the most holy of sites to the Jewish religion. Today, still with Jerusalem under Israeli control, Muslims control the Temple Mount and are allowed to carry out excavations under their Mosque. So in my opinion, the issue of Jerusalem is off the table.

It is time to address the whole "right of return" issue. I would hope that anyone interested in Middle Eastern policy would know that Jews lived throughout most of the Arab nations in the time before Israel was re-created in 1948. My family is one of those. Before coming to Israel in the 1950s, my family lived in Iraq for generations dating back to the times of the bible. When they were "forced" to leave Iraq in the 1950s, they had to leave behind their lives, land, money, homes, and most of their personal belongings.

There are many more families just like mine. At least hundreds of thousands of these families exist in Israel today and they aren't getting anything back from the Arab countries that they once lived in. Is Saddam Hussein going to send any reparations to my family? Will the Shah of Iran send all the money that was left in Tehran back to the Jews that fled Iran? The day any of the answers to those two questions becomes yes, I will agree that the right of return for Palestinians should be discussed. Until then, there is no point in talking about it.

In short, I believe that peace will ultimately fall on the Middle East. We can all agree that the current situation cannot go on. It needs to end somehow. But when someone is murdered, you do not simply forgive the murderer and forget the crime. Similarly, Israel cannot simply say "Alright, now let's talk." It will take some time and when the time comes to negotiate and talk again, no matter who the Israeli leader will be, Yasser Arafat, in my opinion, cannot be sitting at the other end of the table.



Ilan Behm is a freshman who has yet to declare a major