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Ariel Sharon

The Oslo Accords GPO - Avi Ohayon P.M. Yitzhak Rabin shaking hands with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat (R) on white house lawn as U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton looks on.
Thirty years after its euphoric launch, the “Oslo peace process” between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) stands as the worst calamity to have afflicted Israelis and Palestinians since the 1948 war, and the most catastrophic strategic blunder in Israel’s history. By replacing Israel’s control of the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians with corrupt and repressive terrorist entities that indoctrinated their subjects with burning hatred of Jews and Israelis, as well as murdered some 2,000 Israelis and rained thousands of rockets and missiles on their population centers, the Oslo process has made the prospects for peace and reconciliation ever more remote. By deflating the fighting spirit and combative ethos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), it has weakened Israel’s national security and made the outbreak of a multi-front war—a scenario that effectively vanished after the 1973 war—a distinct possibility. By transforming the PLO (and, to a lesser extent, Hamas) into internationally accepted political actors without forcing them to shed their genocidal commitment to the Jewish state’s destruction, it weakened Israel’s international standing and subjected it to sustained de-legitimization campaigns. And by deepening Israel’s internal cleavages and destabilizing its sociopolitical system, it has created a clear and present danger to the Jewish State’s thriving democracy, indeed to its very existence.
The global war on terrorism will continue to dominate American foreign policy and the attitudes toward Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Bush is likely to focus on the situation in Iraq and the determination of Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. However, changes in the Palestinian and the Israeli governments have created opportunities for achieving two principal goals of the global war against terrorism.

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