WHERE IS THE ARAB SHARON?

Where Is the Arab Sharon? - Tim Hames (Times-UK)

• The dilemma for Israel and the peace process is not that Mr. Sharon cannot continue to serve as prime minister. It is that there is no equivalent to Mr. Sharon in the Arab world. There is no one willing to acknowledge publicly that the Palestinians cannot have all that they might want, just as Israelis cannot have everything they might desire.
• There is no one prepared to state what is absolutely obvious, namely that any return to the boundaries of 1967 is a ludicrous notion. There is no one willing to declare openly that not only do those who surround Israel have to recognize its right to exist, but that their societies will thrive only when they begin to emulate the democratic values, economic ingenuity, and cultural diversity that explain why Israel's gross domestic product exceeds that of its vastly more populous neighbors combined.
• Theirs is instead a political culture in which ruling elites officially blame the existence of Israel for their national woes and oppositions damn both Israel and the ruling elites for their own difficulties. This is, in effect, the division between Fatah and Hamas that the parliamentary elections in the Palestinian Authority is brutally exposing.