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More from the Cowardly Oz

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Oslo Accords, Amos Oz writes a column in Newsday demanding that Prime Minister Sharon deal with Yasser Arafat, and criticizing Sharon for failing to completely freeze construction in Judea and Samaria. According to Oz, "Arafat may be a nasty man with a record of violence and double crossing... but we Israelis cannot select Mother Theresa to become the leader of the Palestinians. We have to deal with Arafat not because he is nice and sweet, not because he is our friend, but precisely because he is the leader of our enemies."

That's not what Oz said ten years ago. In a September 1993 column in The Jerusalem Post, Oz wrote that "if they take whatever we give them and demand even more, still exercising violence and terror... Israel will be in a position to close in on Palestine and undo the deal.

"Once peace comes, Israeli doves, more than other Israelis, must assume a clear-cut "hawkish" attitude concerning the duty of the future Palestinian regime to live by the letter and the spirit of its obligations. The plan now being negotiated, Gaza and Jericho first, is a sober and reasonable option. If the Palestinians want to hold onto Gaza and Jericho, eventually assuming power in other parts of the occupied territories, they will have to prove to us, to themselves and to the whole world, that they have abandoned violence and terror, that they are capable of suppressing their fanatics, that they are renouncing the destructive Palestinian Charter and withdrawing from what they used to call 'the right of return.' They will also have to show that they are willing to tolerate in their midst a minority of Israelis who may choose to live where there is no Israeli government."

Instead of honorably standing by his 1993 column, Oz continues to undermine Israel and its elected government.

UPDATE: Readers have commented that Oz has "a right to change his mind" and cannot be held to something that he wrote 10 years ago. However, this is not a question of Oz changing his mind after 10 years, it's about his taking responsibility - as he promised - to "take a hawkish attitude" on the Palestinian duty to abandon violence, and his having completely ignored that responsibility throughout the last ten years.
posted on 9/12/2003