Rashid Khalidi, professor of Middle East History at the University of Chicago, in an Oct. 2 interview on National Public Radio, blamed Ariel Sharon for his lack of sensitivity in visiting the Temple Mount or Haram ash Sharif in Jerusalem and igniting, in so doing, the disturbances in the area. Khalidi stated that Sharon symbolizes for Arab Palestinians the general responsible for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon as well as his indirect responsibility in letting the Lebanese Christian Phalangists commit the massacres of Arab Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila in 1982.
As a result of an official Israeli inquiry, Sharon was punished for his bad judgment.
If Arab Palestinians are indeed offended by Sharon’s visit to the site of the first and second Jewish Temple, most sacred to Jews, how then should Israelis feel when the former terrorist Yasser Arafat, responsible for the murder of many innocent Americans and Jews, visits the White House and the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak?
If Israelis have decided to let bygones be bygones for the sake of a peace process, why can’t the Arab Palestinians do the same?
