Those Israeli and Arab leaders who have achieved peace or made a substantial efforts to achieve peace have been assassinated. These facts do not encourage risk taking on the part of leaders to bridge the gaps necessary to make peace.
In addition to assassination, leaders have been punished by other nations for the actions they took for peace because not all nations benefit from having a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nothing proves this more then the case of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
On November 20, 1977 a worldwide television audience watched many in disbelief as the president of a major military power flew to Jerusalem and proclaimed to the Israeli Parliament Egypt’s acceptance of peace with Israel.” After thirteen consecutive days of negotiations at Camp David later that year, with strong backing from President Jimmy Carter, the parties produced a Camp David accord which was a framework for an Egyptian-Israeli peace. In 1979 the two sides signed an Israel- Egypt peace treaty
Because of Sadat’s courageous step forward, Egypt was punished greatly for making peace with Israel. “Egypt paid a high price in inter-Arab relations for its treaty with Israel. Egypt was expelled from the Arab league, league headquarters were transferred from Cairo to Tunis, and all of the Arab states with the exception of Oman and the Sudan broke diplomatic relations with Cairo.
On October 6 1981, Egypt was celebrating the eighth anniversary of the crossing of the Suez Canal during the 1973 Yom Kippur war with Israel. “When one the vehicles in the long line of US-made carriers paused in front of the reviewing stand, the hero of the crossing
stood to salute the occupants. They returned his gesture with a hail of gunfire.” (William and Cleaved Page 382) The assassins were affiliated with an Islamic militia group called Al-Jihad.
Sadat made a great effort for peace and led Egypt to be the first Arab nation to recognize and be at peace with the State of Israel. Sadat paid for the cost of peace with his life.
Yitzhak Rabin also courageously tried to make peace and he to paid with is life. His efforts for peace were met with a visceral reaction from the Israeli right wing.
They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies.
Rabin was assassinated by a Israeli named Yigal Amir, a young Israeli student at an institute of Jewish religious studies. Investigations showed that Amir had received a devoutly Jewish religious education and that he acted out of the conviction that Jewish law required the death of the Jew who turned Jewish land over to the enemy.
Sadat was regarded as a hero in Egypt because he crossed the Bar Lev line in Israel during the 1973 war. He was viewed by Egyptians as having brought back pride after the humiliation they suffered in the 1967 war with Israel in which they lost significant territory, including the entire Sinai Peninsula. Rabin was the Army Chief of Staff who led Israel to victory in the Six-Day war and was a decorated war hero.
Both Sadat and Rabin were killed by their fellow country men, not an external enemy.
These assassinations maybe act as a deterrent to future leaders on both sides of the conflict because they are unwilling to pay the price that Sadat and Rabin did. 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
