“Jihad will continue and Jerusalem is not only for the Palestinian people, it is for all the Muslim nations.” Arafat, in Arabic 1994, one year after the Oslo agreement

Can optimism make the reality on the ground? Yes, if you want it to. But if the other side does not want to, then optimism falls under fire. In the hearts of the Jews around the world and in the streets of Israel a big wave of positive energy surged saying “We want to make good out of our dream. We want it to count!” By golly they did! They accepted with euphoria Sadat’s visit to Israel which marked the beginning of a peaceful co-existence with Egypt.

They welcomed with open arms the nearly two million immigrants who swept into Israel from Russia, Ethiopia, Europe and the USA claiming their stake in this country of their dreams and hope. It was a struggle, no doubt, an adjustment, of course, but what bigger country has welcomed so many diverse cultures and people within such a short period of time? Gradually Israel pulled itself out of the post Yom Kippur War recession and then soared as tech and medical research enterprises became recognized by the world economy and as companies nestled in between the “big boys” on Wall Street. And culture, the fabric of the human soul: literature, music, theater, film, and the visual arts portrayed the expanding, diversified interests and views of the ever transforming Israeli society in all the mediums.

And Israel wanted peace, craving it so badly that it was willing to exchange a zillion words in a dozen different conferences and summits, memorandums and agreements, stepping on its citizens toes no matter in which direction.

Give up land or not give so much. Reject discussions with terrorists, accept discussions….all this while the Israeli settlements and the Israeli streets were bleeding with Jewish bodies, young and old, soldiers and innocent civilians. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t became the picture on the ground.

If Israel retaliated it was the aggressor, if Israel did not, it neglected its duty to defend itself. It is what Arafat, mastermind butcher, hijacker, father of suicide bombing counted on. Take a State that basically sympathizes with the plight of humans, Jewish and Arabic, bombard them and confuse them with a set of rules out of poltergeist; irreverence to life, adulation of death and take them for a spin. That’s what he did to Israel, the USA, and the West. But did he work alone? No! Sadly, tragically, he was a part of the Arab countries ideological scheme. After all, in Fez they denounced Israel’s right to exist. Egypt and Jordan signed peace agreements with Israel but handed them the Palestinian problem by giving up the Gaza strip and the West Bank respectively.

With their financial support, Israel strengthened Arafat, the chief terrorist of a terrorist army. The mission was first to obtain all the land which the Arabs lost after they attacked Israel in 1967 and then “Inshallah” get the rest of Israel.

Arafat pretended zero control over his terrorists and accepted Israel’s support for a police force to help him control those he had no intentions of controlling. He accepted Israel’s withdrawals and concessions for Palestinian self rule but proceeded unperturbed to cause blood shed. No matter how deep the concessions Prime Minister Barak offered him at Camp David, Arafat opted for a horrible Intifada rather than peace.

This led Clinton to say to Arafat: “I am a failure and you made me one.”