circle is not broken, and broken soon, it will lead, with the preordained certainty of a Greek tragedy, toward a holocaust that will bury Tel Aviv and Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem.
Semitic suicide is the only alternative to Semitic peace.
A different kind of tragedy is brewing in Palestine itself. If no just solution is found soon, the guerrilla war of organizations like al-Fatah will start a vicious circle of its own, a steep spiral of terror and counter-terror, killing and retaliation, sabotage and mass deportation, which will bring undreamt of miseries to the Palestinian people. It will poison the atmosphere and generate a nightmare that will make peace impossible in our lifetime, turning Israel into an armed and beleaguered camp forever, bringing the Arab march toward progress to a complete standstill, and perhaps spelling the end of the Palestinian-Arab people as a nation-the very people for whose freedom al-Fatah fights in vain.
Cease fire-this is not a passive imperative. In order to cease fire, acts of peace must be done. Peace must be waged -actively, imaginatively, incessantly. In the words of the psalmist: "Seek peace and pursue it.'' The search can be passive-the pursuit cannot.
* * *
One of the most beautiful books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, contains a passage which has often disturbed me: "A time to kill, and a time to heal."
Did the Preacher really mean that there is a time to kill? Did he mean to advocate killing at any time?
I don't think so. I see the Preacher as a man full of wisdom and experience, who knew all human follies. He knew that, people being what they are, there are times when war cannot be averted. He wanted to say that after such a war, people must set about to build peace, to wage peace as they have waged war.
In these pages I have passed harsh judgment on both