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Friday April 4, 1997

Just who is Yasser Arafat?

So, is this how a peace process collapses? With a hail of rocks, suicide bombings and renewed economic boycott of Israel?

If Yasser Arafat's goal were to kill off the Oslo Accords, he couldn't be doing a more efficient job.

Fine, Israel's decision to build new housing for Jews on Jerusalem's Har Homa was ill-timed. But the world seems to have forgotten that Israelis have put their very existence on the line by trusting their Arab neighbors and the peace process to create a better life for everyone in the Mideast.

One misstep should not have provoked this degree of violence. What ever happened to civil disobedience?

Regardless of Arafat's public protests to the contrary, he has basically done nothing in the past two weeks but encourage Palestinian militants.

Arafat is convincing Jews everywhere that he is a terrorist first and a statesman second.

No one is asking Arafat to be a Nelson Mandela. But if he were even just a tiny bit like Jordan's King Hussein, the majority of Israelis, who are moderate and want peace, would feel as if they could trust him.

Instead, he is playing into the hands of the Israeli right, which has never abandoned its distrust of Arafat.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world's leaders should be ashamed. Even as they condemn the building on Har Homa, they should condemn just as strongly the Palestinians' return to violence. Where is the U.N. resolution on such acts?

And those who say this current disaster is purely a function of Benjamin Netanyahu and Har Homa shouldn't forget that it was Shimon Peres who felt compelled to close the territories last year after a series of suicide bombers killed scores of Israelis.

So we're asking: Will the real Yasser Arafat please stand up? Or has he already?

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