If Ariel Sharon succeeds in murdering Yasser Arafat, as he wants to, the Palestinian leaderwill remain in the collective memory of his people, and the whole Arab world, like Moses inJewish memory.
Moses rebelled against Egyptian oppression, led his people forth from “the house ofbondage”, led them for 40 years in the desert, made a new people out of them and brought them tothe threshold of the Promised Land. He did not enter the land itself – God only showed it to himfrom afar. That will be told about Arafat, too, if he becomes a martyr now.
Moses is, of course, a mythological figure. No serious scholar in the world believed that theexodus from Egypt really happened. Experts explain that it could not have taken place at all.But that is not really important: the mythological Moses shaped the consciousness of theJewish people more than any flesh-and-blood leader of a nomad tribe in the desert could havedone.
The Haggada, the book read on Passover’s eve by almost every Jewish family throughout theworld, commands us to feel as if we ourselves had set forth from Egypt. The basic Jewish ethos isbuilt on this premise. The text of Ten Commandments in Deuteronomium 5 explains why on the holySabbath the servants and slaves must be allowed to rest, too: “Remember that thou wast a slavein the land of Egypt.”
In the new myth that is being born before our eyes, Sharon is the Pharaoh and we are the ancientEgyptians. In the story about the Exodus, the Bible lets God say: “I have hardened (Pharaoh’s)heart and the heart of his servants.” After every calamity that befell him, Pharaoh broke hispromise to free the Israelites. Why? What was God’s purpose? He wanted the Israelites tobecome hardened by the hardship, before they started on their long march. This is what ishappening to the Palestinians now.
So what will happen if an Israeli bullet kills Arafat now? After Moses, no second Mosesappeared, but Jehosuah, the merciless warrior who committed genocide. (This, by the way, isalso a myth. All serious scholars believe that this holy genocide never actually happened.)After Arafat, the heir will not be Abu-this or Abu-that. It will be Brother Kalachnikoff – likethe song we used to sing in our youth, during the fight against the British occupation: “Givethe floor to Comrade Parabellum, Give the floor to Comrade Tommy-gun.” Parabellum was apistol, tommy-gun a sub-machine-gun.
There will be no Palestinian Quisling – and if a candidate would be found, he would be killed thenext day, like Sharon’s Lebanese Quisling, Bashir Jumail. Dozens of local guerilla leaderswill take over, and they will start a campaign of revenge that may go on for many years, not onlyin the country, but throughout the world. The life of every Israeli will become hell, all theworld will become a Jerusalem-style Ben-Yehuda street. No Israeli embassy, no airplane, notourist will be safe.
The dead Arafat will be by far more dangerous than the living Aarafat. The living Arafat is ableand willing to make peace. The dead Arafat can not. He will eternalize the conflict.
In our days, historians wonder what folly took possession of the Jewish people 1930 years ago,causing them to start a hopeless rebellion against the Roman empire and bringing utterdestruction upon the Jewish commonwealth in Palestine. A hundred years from now, historianswill ask themselves what folly took possession of this people, causing it to elect Sharon, abloody person who has not done anything in life apart from shedding blood and set upsettlements. What folly took possession of this people, causing it to prefer settlements andsome territories to peace and conciliation? And how does this people remain indifferent,when the whole Arab world offers it – perhaps for the last time! – real peace and normalrelations, and the public is listening to the silly ranting of politicians and commentators,who ridicule the offer and cheer Sharon on, at the start of a bloody campaign worse than any onebefore?
History remembers the few, who warned the people of the disaster that is bound to follow if theylisten to the Zealots. History will remember us, the few who are warning the people now of thedisaster that will befall all of us, if we follow Sharon and his gang. Let’s hope that our voiceswill be heard in time, so that we can start on a new road.
If Arafat will be murdered, it will be the moment of no return.