[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 15 (Monday, February 14, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E225-E226]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ARTICLE BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. THELMA D. DRAKE

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 14, 2005

  Mrs. DRAKE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call your attention to the 
following article written by my constituent, Rabbi Israel Zoberman. 
Rabbi Zoberman is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Chaverim in 
Virginia Beach. A son of Polish Holocaust survivors, he grew up in 
Haifa, Israel. He is past President of the Hampton Roads Board of 
Rabbis and Cantors.

       The final departure of Chairman Yasser Arafat is of one who 
     eluded death many a time. During Israel's 1982 incursion into 
     Lebanon to remove the menacing PLO mini-state within a state 
     it was, ironically, Ariel Sharon, then Defense Minister, who 
     ordered a sniper who ``had'' Arafat not to kill him. This is 
     an opportunity to reflect on a man who could have made a 
     critical difference and yet was not able to seize a unique 
     offer granted him for radical self-transformation as well as 
     a collective transition for his long-enduring people. How 
     redemptive it would have been to break the deadly cycle of 
     Palestinian missed opportunities!
       In a fateful moment of truth in 2000 Arafat rebuffed former 
     Prime Minister Barak's most forthcoming offer that would by 
     now have guaranteed statehood in a favorable context to his 
     frustrated people. It also would have prevented the flow of 
     calculated bloodshed which the stubborn refusal and far-
     reaching blunder in judgment brought about. For the past four 
     years Arafat unleashed with a nod of approval an unparalleled 
     torrent of terrorist suicide bombings against Israel's 
     civilian population that no nation would have tolerated for 
     that long, and then many even decried the erection of a 
     defensive barrier.
       Arafat, the father of contemporary terrorism, was already 
     uninhibited early on in his choice of terror as a means to 
     accomplish

[[Page E226]]

     political goals. For example, he was behind the 1974 school 
     children massacre in Israel's northern town of Ma'alot. 
     Ultimately he was unwilling or incapable to lay to rest the 
     Palestinian case and cause, assuming the normalcy of civil 
     life that his own people might be rehabilitated and build the 
     political, economic and social infrastructure necessary for 
     the emergence of their democratic society and a viable state 
     that would not threaten Israel nor Jordan from which his 
     troublesome cohorts were evicted by the late King Hussein in 
     ``Black September'' of 1970. Unlike the likes of South 
     African Nelson Mandela who knew how to leave and live with a 
     painful past, charting a new course for the sake of his 
     people, Arafat would not shed his ubiquitous military uniform 
     and the old persona of violent defiance. He thus allowed the 
     terrorist within him to win over the peacemaker he 
     triumphantly became for a brief time following his 
     ``resurrection'' by Israel from obscure exile in Tunisia. How 
     sad that the honor of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize could not 
     keep him in check.
       Admittedly, I was among those who applauded Arafat when he 
     and his peace partner, Yitzchak Rabin of blessed memory, 
     shook hands in the South Lawn of the White House on that 
     bright day of promise in September 1993. I wanted to believe 
     that Arafat, whose hands were stained with the blood of so 
     many of my brethren, could rise to the precious opportunity 
     to redeem himself and restore dignity to his people while 
     bringing peace to a beleaguered Israel.
       At this new crossroads of the post-Arafat era, will the 
     Palestinian Authority wisely reach out to refashion itself 
     sans the oppressive, conflict-ridden and corrupt style of its 
     deceased leader, allowing its permanent neighbor Israel to be 
     a blessing to her?

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