(Wall Street Journal) Natan Sharansky and Bassem Eid - We each warned 30 years ago, after the Oslo Accords, when the free world chose to install Yasser Arafat as dictator over the Palestinian people, that this would undermine the prospects for peace. We both have intimate knowledge of dictatorships. We knew Arafat would never promote peace with Israel because all dictators need an external enemy. Only by mobilizing his people against the Jewish state could Arafat deflect their dissatisfaction with him and retain control. In the years after Oslo, Arafat destroyed the beginnings of civil society, seized control over the economy, preserved refugee camps as a source of mobilization against Israel, and created an education system geared almost exclusively to promoting hatred of the Jewish state. Nevertheless, Israel remained under permanent pressure to give him - and later his successor, Mahmoud Abbas - more territory, money and weapons in the hope that at some point he could serve as Jerusalem's partner in peace. Everyone in Israel remembers the crowds of Gazans who cheered the Oct. 7 terrorists as they paraded their victims. But one need only compare pictures of Germans demonstrating their loyalty to Hitler in 1943 with pictures from 1945 and 1955 to see that such enthusiasm is fleeting. Expressions of disillusionment with Hamas will increase as soon as Gazans are less fearful of their leaders - and there are signs this is already happening. What does the "day after" look like for Gaza? There must first be a transitional period during which security remains in Israel's hands. Administrative control should pass to a coordinating body of representatives from the West and Arab countries that recognize Israel. The mission of this body should be to rebuild the Palestinian education system, purging it of jihadism; destroy the refugee camps, giving their residents normal housing; and respect civil-society organizations, granting them the freedom to promote human rights and the rule of law. Only after this should elections be held; elections in a society that isn't free will have no significance. Natan Sharansky is a former political prisoner in the Soviet Union, former minister in Israeli governments, and former Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel. Bassem Eid founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group in 1996.
2024-01-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive