Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2000 | 11:21 a.m.
Four weeks of fighting in the Middle East has left 127 dead, and Consul General of Israel Yuval Rotem wondering if Palestinian leaders will return to peace negotiations.
"They must understand that you cannot gain through violence what you cannot win through negotiations," Rotem said at a meeting of the Las Vegas Sun's editorial board Tuesday. "All the progress that has been made has primarily been accomplished through negotiations, and never with violence."
Rotem, who serves as the senior representative of Israel to the southwestern United States, was scheduled to speak to the Las Vegas Jewish Federation today as part of a tour to explain Israel's position and to update Jewish and Israeli groups about the events in the Mideast.
Many Palestinians say that Israel Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon's Sept. 28 visit to a holy shrine on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem sparked the recent violence, though Israelis contend that Palestinians used the controversy as a pretext for an uprising.
"In retrospect, a year from now we may need to thank Sharon for showing the true face of our peace partners," Rotem said.
Despite a month of violence press reports out of Israel say 65 percent to 70 percent of Israelis want to see the peace process move forward, but the question of who will lead the process is in doubt.
When Israel's parliament convenes in about two weeks, an election could be called, possibly pitting Prime Minister Ehud Barak against former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is reportedly considering a comeback, or Sharon.
"The cloud of Benjamin Netanyahu is already there, with about 50 percent of the people supporting him compared to 30 percent for the prime minister according to newspaper reports," Rotem said.
Netanyahu, a former Likud leader, or Sharon, would likely shift the strategies for Israel's future back to a more hard-line militaristic approach toward the Palestinians.
"Whenever there is a sense of instability in the region and people question their personal safety, there is a shift of Israelis to the right," Rotem said. "A perfect example is in 1996 when we had about 100 people killed during a month of suicide bombings, and Netanyahu was elected.
"In a lot of ways the guy who is going to determine the next prime minister of Israel is Yasser Arafat."
Rotem says that Arafat, the leader of the Palestinians, wants to see a hard-liner such as Netanyahu or Sharon become prime minister because Arafat understands how they would run the government, and how to counter them.
"He (Arafat) had a problem dealing with Ehud Barak, because Arafat is the only guy in town still wearing a military uniform," Rotem said. "He doesn't want to symbolically take that uniform off," to deal with Barak's peace overtures.
"Arafat knows how to account for a conservative Israeli leader. There was no need for this eruption unless Arafat wanted to revive the images of Israelis as Goliath and Palestinians as David."
Rotem credits Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak with helping to contain the violence, and stopping it from engulfing all of the Middle East.
"Arafat tried to suck the entire Middle East into an explosion, because of all the young, inexperienced leaders in Morocco, Jordan and Syria," Rotem said. "If no one drew a line, we were on the verge of a major confrontation between Israel and all the others.
"But when Mubarak came out and said that war was not an option, it rallied Morocco, other gulf states and Jordan. We can salute Mubarak given the pressure Arafat was putting on the leaders, who were looking for leadership from Cairo that could have otherwise come from Baghdad."
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