is that the Palestinians have never achieved anything without resorting to violence. Therefore the petitions being signed these days by wellmeaning Palestinian personalities, calling for an end to the armed struggle, will have no effect. They cannot point to any other method that will sound convincing to their public. And our government always, without exception, presents such moves as a sign of weakness.
In the even longer run, the assassination of Yassin poses an existential danger. For five generations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was essentially a national conflict-a clash between two great national movements, each of which claimed the country for itself. A national conflict is basically rational, it can be solved by compromise. This may be difficult, but it is possible. Our nightmare has always been that the national struggle would turn into a religious one. Since every religion claims to represent absolute truth, religious struggle does not allow for compromise.
The martyrdom of Sheikh Yassin pushes even further away the chance of Israel ever attaining peace and tranquility, normal relations with its neighbors, with a flourishing economy. It increases the danger that future generations of Arabs and Muslims will view it as a foreign implantation, installed in this region by force, with every decent Muslim, from Morocco to Indonesia, duty-bound to strive for its uprooting.
Such insights are far from the capability of our three generals to absorb. Sharon, Mofaz, Ya'alon, and their ilk understand only brute force in the service of a narrow nationalism. Peace does not inspire them; for them compromise is a dirty word. It is quite clear that they will feel much more comfortable if the Palestinian people is led by fanatical religious fighters than by a man prepared to compromise like Yassir Arafat.
April 26, 2005
Gush Shalom letter to Bar Ilan University:
To: Professor Moshe Kaveh
President, Bar Ilan University
Dear Sir,
In various media interviews today you expressed anger at the decision of British university lecturers to declare a boycott against the Bar Ilan University, calling it "an unacceptable mixing of politics into academic life." When asked about the "Judea and Samaria College" which your