Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, aut… - Edward Said

Where cruelty and injustice are concerned, hopelessness is submission, which I believe is immoral.

Palestinian officials signed the agreement to partition Hebron, they signed many other agreements without getting prior assurances that the settlements would end (and at least not be increased) and that all signs of military occupation would be effaced. They must now explain publicly what they thought they were doing and why they did it. Then they must let us express our views on their actions and their future. And for once they must listen and try to put the general interest before their own, despite the millions of dollars they have either squandered or squirreled away in Paris apartments and valuable real estate and lucrative business deals with Israel. Enough is enough.

Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are locked in Sartre’s vision of hell, that of “other people.” There is no escape. Separation can’t work in so tiny a land, any more than apartheid did. Israeli military and economic power insulates Israelis from having to face reality. This is the meaning of Sharon’s election, an antediluvian war criminal summoned out of the mists of time to do what: put the Arabs in their place? Hopeless. Therefore it is up to us to provide the answer that power and paranoia cannot. It isn’t enough to speak generally of peace. One must provide the concrete grounds for it, and those can only come from moral vision, and neither from “pragmatism” nor “practicality.” If we are all to live—this is our imperative—we must capture the imagination not just of our people but of our oppressors. And we have to abide by humane democratic values.
Is the current Palestinian leadership listening? Can it suggest anything better than this, given its abysmal record in a “peace process” that has led to the present horrors?