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Palestinians Do Not Need Another Tyrant
(Los Angeles Times) Natan Sharansky - Arafat is dead. Whether this will really prove to be a positive turning point in the search for peace in the Middle East depends on whether we have learned from the failures of the past. The Oslo process failed because the democratic world, including Israel, believed that peace could be made with a dictator. Neither the U.S. nor Israel nor Europe would do anything to "weaken" him, or more extreme elements would come to power. Only weeks after Oslo began, when nearly all the world was drunk with the idea of peace, I argued that a Palestinian "fear society" would always pose a grave threat to Israel and would never prove a reliable peace partner. It was Andrei Sakharov, the foremost dissident in the Soviet Union, who taught me that regimes that do not respect the rights of their own people will not respect the rights of their neighbors. In the post-Arafat era, the success of the peace process will hinge on whether the world finally focuses on what goes on inside Palestinian-controlled areas. If the world focuses once and for all on helping the Palestinians build a free society, I have no doubt that a historic compromise between Israelis and Palestinians can be reached and that peace can prevail.