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NATAN SHARANSKY:
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The War Against Peace
 It has been a long two years. Two years of fighting a war like none other, against terrorist gangs hiding within a supportive civilian population, backed by the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority itself.
This has been, in effect, Arafat's war of survival.
Dictators, by their nature, need an external enemy to justify their hold on power and the oppression of their own people. Dictator Arafat has abused the trust placed in him by the world and by us, and has betrayed the faith placed in him by his own people. This is the true meaning of the past two years.
We have learned, through painful experience the world over, that the only way to genuine peace is by having partners for peace who represent the real interests of their respective people. This war was a dictator's war against his people. I don't believe any people naturally hates another; the Palestinian Authority has spent a decade educating their people to hate.
This dictator and his minions instigated the war, encouraged the terrorist groups, and engaged in the actual fighting because they know (as we are seeing even now) that the engagement in a true process of reconciliation means the end of their dictatorial rule.
Some have called this the "Oslo War." But that does not place the responsibility for the lives of so many hundreds dead and thousands injured where it really lies. The Palestinian Authority ignited this war when Arafat thought it most convenient for him. He was, I believe, dead wrong.
Perhaps this is not Arafat's war of survival: it is his war against peace, and will in fact be the war of his ruin.
Yet, on a much more positive note, we can recognize that the challenges of the past two years have brought us closer together as a nation, as we commit ourselves anew both to fighting for our independence and to building a strong and democratic society. While we mourn the tragic losses we've suffered over the past two years, we also celebrate the unity and strength of purpose we've rediscovered, as a society, as a nation, as one people.
The writer is deputy prime minister and minister
of construction and housing.
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