Topics in this digest: Chayye Sarah 5765
By Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff
22 Cheshvan 5765
November 6, 2005
This week’s Torah portion is called “Chayye Sarah,” which means “the life
of Sarah.” And yet, curiously, this week’s reading does not seem to be
about the life of Sarah at all: rather it’s about her death, her burial,
and it continues with the story of her son Isaac and his procuring a wife.
Perhaps this juxtaposition between calling the parsha the “life of Sarah,”
yet seeing it start with the death of Sarah can serve as a reminder of
something that we learn from the Talmud: “The righteous in their death are
called living (Brachot 18a).”
This week much of the attention of the world is focused on the death or
imminent death of someone who has been one of the most powerful players in
the field of global politics: Yasser Arafat.
Since Arafat is not dead yet, at least not officially, not as I write
these words Friday morning, it might seem premature to talk about what
happens with the death of Arafat. However, just as the Talmud says “the
righteous in their death are called living,” it also says “the wicked in
their lifetime are called dead.” This really seems to literally be the
case with Arafat. For the last day or so, the media have been reporting
about Arafat as if he is already dead: there have been reports on the
debate about where he will be buried, and it has even been reported that
former US President Jimmy Carter is going to attend the funeral on behalf
of the United States. The wicked in their lifetime are called dead—all
the while, Arafat is still technically alive, at least according to the
latest reports.
I have not been praying for the death of Arafat. While our tradition does
not tell us to turn the other cheek when someone hurts you, it also does
not tell us pray for the death of our enemies. There is a beautiful story
told in the Talmud that illustrates the point. There was a time when some
wicked people were tormenting Rabbi Meir. His wife, Beruriah, heard the
rabbi praying the death of these bandits. Beruriah said, “wait, what are
you doing? Do you think this is permitted because of the verse which says
“let chata’im, sins, cease?” Does it says “chota’im, sinners? NO—it says
SINS.” So R. Meir changed his prayer, to one that the wicked people
should do repentance. And they did repent, and stopped tormenting him.
It’s interesting to point out that the tradition also differentiates
between prayer and action: it would have been perfectly permissible to
capture, try, and put Arafat to death for murder. When he was planning
terrorist attacks, it would have been permissible to kill him in
self-defense, to prevent the attacks. But we don’t PRAY for his death.
So I have been praying for the repentance of Yasser Arafat. Just imagine,
maybe he’ll wake up from his coma, say he saw God, and all of a sudden
decide that he WAS wrong all these years, and he’ll accept the peace terms
from Israel, will stop all terrorism, will disarm Hamas and other
terrorist
groups, and will become a real leader to the Palestinian people. I’m not
holding my breath waiting, however. And if he fails to repent, I suppose
his death is the next best thing.
The only people who have suffered more than the Jews because of Yasser
Arafat are the Palestinians. For most Jews, Yasser Arafat is rasha, a
wicked person, in the same league as Hitler, Stalin, or Haman. You’ll
hear some people say yimach shemo, may his name be erased, when they say
Arafat’s name.
Yet to the Palestinians, Yasser Arafat, President of the State of
Palestine (according to the PA web site), Chairman of the Executive
Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, President of the
Palestinian Authority, winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, is a hero like
George Washington, and an underdog like the Boston Red Sox, all rolled
into one.
You would think a man with a fortune estimated at over one billion dollars
would not need to lie on his resume, yet the very first line in Arafat’s
resume as posted on the official PA web site claims that Arafat was born
in 1929 in “Jerusalem-Palestine.” Yet most biographies, including the one
on the official Nobel Prize web site, says Arafat was born in Cairo. An
enterprising journalist went to Cairo and tracked down Arafat’s birth
certificate with no trouble. The clerk didn’t hesitate to give the
journalist a copy: apparently his original name, Mohammed Abdel Rahman
Abdel Raouf Arafat Al Qudua Al Husseini, didn’t ring any bells with the
Egyptian clerk.
This, of course, is not the only instance in which Arafat tried to rewrite
history. According to The Atlantic, in addition to claiming that he was
born in Jerusalem, he claims to belong to the prominent Jerusalem family
of Husseini (famous for the head mufti of Jerusalem who supported Hitler
during the War), but he is at best only distantly related to it. He claims
that he turned down a chance to go to the University of Texas, but
according to one biographer, the Palestinian-born writer Saïd K. Aburish,
it is highly unlikely that he was ever accepted. He claims to have
disabled ten Israeli armored personnel carriers in the 1948 Arab-Israeli
war, but Israel didn't even have ten APCs in the sector he was in. He
claims to have made millions as a businessman in Kuwait, but this, too, is
almost certainly untrue.
Obviously, Arafat is a congenital liar. But there's more to it than that:
his lies are all designed to create an aura of romance around himself and
the Palestinian people.
If you read his official resume you can see why his people consider him
such a hero. It’s not entirely a work of fiction…but it does make up some
stuff, and it does leave a lot out. Arafat earned an engineering degree
from a university in Cairo and fought in the Egyptian Army. He formed
Fatah in 1958, and was named Commander in Chief of the Forces of the
Palestinian Revolution in 1973. I thought the Palestinians were still
waiting to announce an independent state, but on his resume it says that
in 1988 Arafat announced the establishment of an independent Palestinian
State. His resume says that in 1989 he launched the Palestinian peace
initiative, leading to his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 and
the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1995. He has received several
honorary PhD’s, the most recent one in Business Administration (presumably
for amassing a fortune worth an estimated US $1 billion out of his salary
as head of the PLO) from Masstricht University of Holland in 1999.
Makes him sound like quite the legitimate military leader and statesman.
The Israeli version of his C.V. would read quite differently. The ugliest
times begin with when he took over as head of the PLO in 1969. In 1972
Black September, an affiliate of the PLO, kidnapped and murdered 11
Israeli athletes during the summer Olympics in Munich.
Another of his early terrorist acts was actually against Americans, not
Israelis. According to the Jewish Press (March 14 1997) a tape of Arafat
recorded by the Israeli Secret Service, ordering the execution of 2
American diplomats (Cleo Noel and George Moore) was given to the State
Department. On the night of March 2, 1973, PLO gunmen pumped 40 bullets
into the bodies of the US ambassador to Sudan and two other diplomats held
hostage at the Saudi embassy in Khartoum. Almost exactly 24 years later,
the man who ordered the killings was warmly received in Washington DC by
the leader of the American people.
Another notorious PLO action was in May, 1974, when the PLO infiltrated
Maalot High School in Israel and massacred 26 children and adults and
wounded another 66.
The PLO was instrumental in promoting the first Intifada from 1987-1993,
in which 160 Israelis were killed. Lots of Palestinians were killed,
mostly by other Palestinians. The New York Times described the discovery
of "a cache of detailed secret documents showing that the PLO hired local
killers to assassinate other Palestinians and carry out 'military
activity' against Israelis." One document described how the PLO wanted the
attacks credited to fictional groups so as not to disturb the U.S.-PLO
dialogue.
Those acts were just the beginning. Arafat’s complicity in the current
round of violence is the worst thing yet. Over the last four years, over
1000 Israelis and 2100 Palestinians have been killed. The Palestinians
are further away then ever before from having a state of their own. Their
economy has been utterly destroyed. The Palestinians live in miserable
conditions, with the worst poverty in Europe or the Middle East. Arafat
not only failed to stop the terrorism, he actively encouraged it. There
is solid intelligence linking him to the latest terrorist acts, including
documents the Israelis captured during the raid on Jenin, signed by
Arafat, authorizing payments to known terrorist leaders for services
rendered.
Arafat bred an atmosphere in the Palestinian territories where children
are lining themselves up to blow themselves up and kill a few Jews.
Arafat bred an atmosphere where Palestinians were dancing in the streets
cheering when the World Trade Center was destroyed along with several
thousand innocent people.
So it might be understandable is we are tempted to rejoice when this rasha
passes on. But I won’t. Our tradition tells us, “binfol oyvekha al
tismach,” do not rejoice in the downfall of your enemy. The midrash tells
us that when God parted the Red Sea and brought our ancestors out of
Egypt,
the angels wanted to sing a song of praise to God, but God stopped them:
“how can you be singing songs of praise when my children are drowning in
the sea?”
So we acknowledge that even the wicked Yasser Arafat is one of God’s
creatures, and there is sadness that he was such a wicked and terrible
person, not rejoicing that he is gone…or at least going. But we have
another reason not to rejoice. We have no idea what will happen next.
Ariel Sharon, George Bush, and Bill Clinton all agree that Yasser Arafat
was the major obstacle to peace. You might think, therefore, that if we
remove the obstacle all should be well. Think again. Look at Iraq. The
Arafat of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was removed, and even with a large US
military presence the country has been plunged into violence and chaos.
The PLO, Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, et.al. don’t normally spend a lot of
time killing each other, but the political climate in the PA could
certainly be one where there will be no strong leadership in the
foreseeable future. Even if a moderate heads up the Palestinian
Authority, there is no guarantee he will be able to reign in all the
different terrorist groups, many of whom are opposed to peace with Israel,
who vow to fight until Israel is destroyed. It is unlikely that a
Palestinian leader will emerge who will have the courage to do what David
Ben Gurion did in the Alta Lena incident at the founding of Israel—to make
clear, even using military force against his own people, that there is
only
one military, only one government.
Arafat fancied himself the father of the Palestinian state. If we look at
the miserable condition of the stateless Palestinians, he’s more like the
father of an aborted mess. As the great Israeli statesman, Abba Eban,
said, “Arafat never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” One
opportunity stands out above all others: in the summer of 2000, Arafat
could have agreed to the peace plan proposal worked out with Bill Clinton
and Ehud Barak. If he had accepted that deal, and worked to bring it to
fruition, he could right not be remembered as the true father of the
Palestinian nations. His terrorist past would have been over-shadowed by
his being a statesman. Instead, he’ll be remembered as a failed murderer.
May Arafat’s hopes of blood and the destruction of Israel die with him, as
it says in Mishlei, Proverbs (11:7): “When a wicked man dies, his
expectation shall perish, and the hope of strength perishes as well.”
There’s not much we can do about what will happen between Israel and the
Palestinians with Arafat out of the picture other than pray. So let us
pray for the Palestinians.
Ribbono shel Olam, Master of the Universe, please help the Palestinian
people in this difficult time. Help them find a leader who will renounce
violence and terror, who will lead them on a path of peace with Israel and
prosperity for themselves. Help them find a just leader who will be strong
enough to shut down all terrorist groups, and remove corruption from their
midst, now and forever. Grant the leaders of both the children of Ishmael
and the children of Isaac the strength, vision, and righteousness to lead
us to the better times You promised the children of Abraham.
Amen.
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