Media reports tend to compare the moves made by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Here is an envisioned dialogue between both.ÂÂ
Sharon: Hey Abu Mazen, I am sticking my neck, you are not. I am standing firm against settlers, extreme right wing and Likud back stabbers, and you are negotiating your way. My position is not better than yours, I am taking more risks than you, yet you receive world sympathy, I don’t.
Abbas: Dear Sharon, stop whining. You are still the occupier, I am the occupied. You have a state, I don’t. You have security forces; I am still building and reforming. Your people move freely, mine don’t. Your army is in my backyard, the ruined mine is also in my backyard. I still have no authority, yours extends into my territories.
Nevertheless, dear premier, you are still planning, while I am implementing. So far No settler has moved out, yet on my side, hundreds of Palestinian gunmen have handed arms. Your army is still firing; my opponents are mostly committed to a truce.
You are demanding sympathy for the courage of partially correcting a historical mistake; I am earning it for peacemaking.
You are strangling with cement blocks, I am opening gates of hope. There is never a parallel between occupiers and freedom seekers.
I do appreciate your pullout plan, but not as much as the French historic decision to depart Algiers, or that of South African leaders declaring end of apartheid.
To turn into a peacemaker, you need to do more than demographic separation. ÂÂ
