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15
THOUGHT ON ARAFAT ON HIS DEATH BED
Rabbi Dow Marmur
If someone comes to kill you, try to kill him first. That’s the teaching of our Sages. No system of justice
anywhere in the world, however liberal, can challenge this principle.
Yasser Arafat set out to kill as many of our people as he could, if not in direct combat then by financing and
directing his gullible and faithful lieutenants to commit unspeakable acts of terror. The evidence against him is
overwhelming.
On these grounds it would have been just and proper for Israel to dispose of Arafat, which, of course, could have
been easily accomplished, especially in the last three years when he was a virtual prisoner in his battered
compound.
His life was spared not out of theological or ethical considerations but out of fear that he would have been even
more lethal as a martyr than he was as a live potentate. He survived in the hope that not killing him might save
more lives than executing him.
Discussing the situation with my son Michael in Jerusalem, he told me a story about two Jews who had found a
way to kill Hitler. They had discovered the path he took on his lonely walks through the forest every morning at
a certain hour. They lay in wait for him there. But at the appointed time he didn’t turn up. After an hour or so,
one of the would-be assassins said to the other: “I hope nothing has happened to him.” If we Jews hoped that
nothing would happen to Arafat, it wasn’t because we wanted to see him alive.
But now nature is taking its course. Yet this isn’t a time for rejoicing, for we don’t know what terror will be
unleashed after his death. Those of us of the worst-case-scenario persuasion are fearful that Palestinians and
their fellow-travellers will blame his death on the Jews and in the internal struggle between various Palestinian
factions that’s bound to follow, they’ll mount new attacks on Israel’s Jewish citizens.
But even if the worst won’t happen, our gloating over his death could only become a senseless provocation.
The question is if we can turn Arafat’s death into an opportunity for the living, for his people no less than for
ours. For now is the time to renew efforts to identify prominent Palestinian leaders who hitherto have not dared
to enter into open dialogue with Israelis. For nobody believes that the conflict can be resolved by force. It’s
precisely those who don’t want a resolution who make a special effort to kill and maim each time a settlement,
however remote, is conceived. Peace depends on those who distance themselves from terror and are prepared to
denounce it.
The opportunity for the Palestinians is to try to stop, or at least slow down, the terrorists bent on gaining ground
because of Arafat’s demise. The opportunity for Israelis is to know how to distinguish between potential
partners and implacable enemies in a renewed effort not to antagonize and demoralize the former.
It’s not too far-fetched to hope that the President of the United States will use his good offices to encourage the
forces of progress on both sides to come together, now when Yasser Arafat, the single most menacing obstacle to
peace, is no more.
There’s no room and no reason for Jewish grief that Arafat is leaving this life. But there’s a glimmer of hope.
So let’s hold on to it – and celebrate it.
Toronto, November 4, 2004
Dow Marmur
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