THE ANTI-ZIONIST LEFT:

Arafat gets rehab (EFRAIM INBAR Jun. 26, 2004, Jerusalem Post)

Haaretz has adopted an uncharacteristic dose of "religiosity" by becoming the vehicle for a pathetic attempt by the Israeli radical Left to politically resurrect Yasser Arafat.

The newspaper claims that Arafat was not the instigator of the September 2000 intifada but has consistently searched for a two-state solution in his quest for peaceful coexistence. Haaretz also published an interview with the Palestinian leader which refrained from posing difficult questions. Arafat was allowed to portray himself as a man of peace.

Israeli messianic doves have repeatedly saved Arafat from oblivion. Yossi Beilin and the crowd around him saved Arafat in 1993 at a time when the PLO was weak due to its strategic blunder of supporting Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War. The group, isolated in Tunis, was on the verge of bankruptcy.

But Beilin et al persuaded Yitzhak Rabin – against his better judgment – to enter into a deal with the PLO, which brought Arafat to the White House, allowed the PLO to regain its dwindling international status, and gave it a territorial foothold in the territories.

These same doves never stopped advocating – as if out of religious conviction – increasingly larger Israeli concessions and a policy of turning a blind eye to the Palestinian violations of the Oslo agreements. The failure of Arafat to honor his pledge to Rabin and desist from terrorist activities was invariably explained away.

The PLO chief's repeated calls for jihad were belittled as insignificant rhetoric. Early Israeli casualties resulting from Palestinian terrorism were seen as "sacrifices for peace."

But peace did not come. It took the majority of Israelis more than a decade and over 1,000 dead to realize the murderous nature of the Palestinian national movement. The swing in public opinion to a more realistic assessment of the conflict is the reason for the recent attempt by the radical Left to rewrite history.