PEACE IN AN IMPERFECT WORLD
Author:
Date: Saturday, October 15, 1994
Page: 14
Section: EDITORIAL PAGE
It came as no surprise that the most prestigious prize in the world, the
Nobel Peace Prize, was awarded to Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and
Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Their famous handshake
on the White House lawn was clearly the single event of 1993 that embodied the
conditions of Alfred Nobel's will, written 99 years ago: that the prize should
be given to the person who, in the preceding year, "shall have done the most
or the best work for fraternity between nations."
The happy surprise was that the jury should have included Israel's foreign
minister, Shimon Peres, without whose bold and tireless efforts to reach out
to his erstwhile enemies there would have been no peace agreement. The world
is fortunate that two often bitter rivals, Peres and Rabin, were able to
submerge their personal differences to break through the generations of hate
that divided Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Without Peres there would have
been no deal with the PLO, and without Rabin -- Mr. National Security --
Israel would not have accepted it.
As for Arafat, the sly old dissembling survivor -- he was the one man on
the Palestinian side who had the prestige to persuade enough of his embattled
people to give up their maximum dreams and settle for compromise. Not all
Palestinians have accepted the peace. The outrageous kidnapping of an Israeli
soldier attests to that. But enough have so that the peace will go forward and
expand despite current difficulties.
One Nobel juror resigned in protest over Arafat's selection. But as the
Nobel committee's secretary, Geir Lundestad, said: "The Nobel Prize isn't the
granting of sainthood. There have been many winners with dark things about
their past, but they have managed to raise themselves above them."
Arafat, Peres and Rabin all rose above the prejudice, suspicion, hostility
and fear that has dominated that small sliver of land between the
Mediterranean and the Dead Sea for more than 100 years. The task is by no
means completed. Full peace has not yet arrive. But this year's Nobel
laureates made it possible.
GREENW;10/14 CAWLEY;10/17,18:11 ENOBEL15
|
