In many ways, the death of Yasir Arafat provides an enormous test for the Palestinian people and for the rest of the world.  A series of questions can now be posed for the world to ponder:  1.  Can the Palestinians move from a revolutionary ethos of victimhood and military confrontation with Israel to a more responsible and legitimate government, able to care for its people and negotiate for them?  2.  With Arafat gone, can Israel negotiate with an emerging Palestinian leadership?  3.  Can President Bush and the European Union work with the Palestinians and Israel to provide support and constructive pressure to reach a just and equitable settlement?  Let’s think about this:

• First, the central question above all is that the death of Arafat forces the Palestinians to ask themselves what kind of people they want to be and what kind of independent state they want to have.  Arafat had recognized Israel’s right to exist only in a formal and grudging manner.  He evidenced no willingness to brook compromise on the status of Jerusalem or the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel (“the right of return doctrine”).  He did nothing to stop anti-Jewish propaganda aimed at Israel’s destruction and he, quite honestly, turned a blind eye to young terrorists and suicide bombers.  In his speeches, usually in Arabic, Arafat called for “a million martyrs to march on Jerusalem.”  Terrorism was an important part of his tactical arsenal.  He never renounced the symbols that represented the armed struggle which he led.  Steven Erlanger writes, “He behaved like a tribal chieftain, handing out money and favors to those in need and not.  He earned loyalty, but he also bought it, and while personally abstemious [self-denying], he oversaw a corrupt administration that did little to improve the welfare of ordinary Palestinians.”  He ruled the PLO through the “deliberate chaos” of playing one person off another, one faction against another, one security service against another.  He never dealt with the terrible corruption of his PLO; in fact he seemed to encourage it.  His own wealth, perhaps measuring over $1 billion, has never been accounted for.  In fact, his wife lives in luxury in Paris while his people live in poverty and desperation.  At his death, he was losing credibility with his people.  Only his death restored it.

• Second, the new generation of PLO leaders, Mahmoud Abbas, the new PLO chairman, and Ahmed Qurei, the PLO prime minister, has almost none of Arafat’s charisma or street credibility.  They are, in Erlanger’s words, “institutional inheritors, rather than revolutionary leaders, who wear business suits rather than guerilla fatigues, and have cultivated manners. . . .”  They must both work quickly to rebuild the credibility of Palestinian institutions, and will try to do so with elections.  The problem is that Abbas has no popular base of support and he has a reputation of being too friendly with the West, especially the US and even Israel.  All of this must be combined with the reality that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are waiting in the background to strike and seize power.  They believe they have an edge, a terrorist edge built over the last few years.  Perhaps they are the greatest threat to any peaceful or constructive dialogue with the US or with Israel.  Both terrorist groups appear unwilling to compromise with Israel.  If there is no willingness to compromise, there is no hope for a settlement.  The Palestinians must formally, and with total support of all its leadership, accept the right of Israel to exist as a nation.  If they do not do this and they do not agree to live in peace with Israel, there will never be peace.  The new generation of PLO leaders must prepare the Palestinian people for formal recognition of Israel’s right to exist, and that they will never get their land back in Palestine.  The “right of return dream” is a dream that must die if there is to be permanent peace in the Middle East. 

Allow me to illustrate: In 1996, Arafat made a speech in Stockholm in which he argued, “We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state.  We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. . . . We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.”  If the new PLO leadership adopts that same impossible vision, the Palestinian people will be cursed for another generation with constant warfare with Israel, constant killing of their young through suicide bombings and a growing alienation and radicalization of their young.  This vision is not a viable vision for the PLO.  They must accept Israel’s right to exist and they must end the doctrine of the “right of return.”  Arafat was a failed leader—he never prepared his people for compromise with Israel; he never created a viable vision for his people; and he never provided for a smooth transition in leadership.  He was neither a national nor a political leader; he was a symbol, a cultish symbol.  He created a personality cult—and it died when he died.  What a monstrous tragedy; and the Palestinian people will go on living out that tragedy.

See Erlanger’s article in the New York Times (12 November 2004) and Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal (5 November 2004). 

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THE REMARKABLE AFGHAN ELECTIONS

In mid-October, for the first time in Afghanistan’s long history, ordinary Afghan people had a chance to vote for their nation’s leader, and neither threats of terrorist disruptions nor cynicism about alleged behind-the-scenes-deal-making kept them away.  Millions of people turned out to affirm their faith in their own democratic future.  The election of President Hamid Karzai was truly a remarkable development.  Let’s place this historic development in its proper context.

• First, the most important point about the elections is that the average Afghan made the difference.  Exhausted by decades of war and buoyed by a sense that the country was headed in the right direction, Afghans tipped off authorities about possible terrorist attacks and generally embraced the concept of elections as a vehicle for peaceful change.  Further, the US has pumped over $1.76 billion in reconstruction funds into the country.  The US also doubled its forces in Afghanistan to 20,000 from 11,000, deploying small military reconstruction units across the country and marines to scour the unstable southern areas.  The US has also trained thousands of Afghan soldiers, police officers and civil servants.  In addition, security operations by beefed-up American, NATO and Afghan forces thwarted a variety of planned Taliban attacks, with Pakistan doing far more to secure the borders against further incursions of Taliban and al Qaeda from the East.  Although the Taliban remain a threat against aid agencies and can prevent reconstruction efforts, especially in the rural south, they failed miserably in thwarting the elections. 

• Second, this election success is critical to the importance of restoring Afghan national identity, an integral element in nation building.  For centuries, Afghans had a sense of national identity, but over the last 26 years, it has been thwarted by the communal strife that began with the 1978 Soviet-sponsored communist coup, followed by the Soviet invasion.  With the advance of democracy in Afghanistan, its positive attributes of greater order and security and political and economic freedom will follow in this needy country.  An election like the one recently held in Afghanistan goes a long way to restoring the legitimacy of the national government.  That legitimacy also furthers the development of other institutions vital to a modern state, such as an independent judicial system and a fair and reliable tax system to finance state institutions.  Women in great numbers voted in the election and will now increasingly take their rightful roles in nation building.  For that reason, education is a critical element of this new state, for it is the key to helping equip the next generation of men and women for their role in a free and independent Afghanistan.  What has occurred in Afghanistan could be the wave of the future in the Middle East.  A free, democratic Afghanistan will teach the Iraqis what their country could become.  May God be gracious in allowing this to occur!

See The Economist (16 October 2004), pp. 37-38;  George Melloan, Wall Street Journal (12 October 2004); Carlotta Gall and David Rohde, New York Times (20 October 2004); editorial New York Times (12 October 2004).

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FAITH AT WORK

With the reelection of George W. Bush, the importance of morals and ethics in our culture has come to center stage once again.  There seems little doubt that evangelical and conservative Catholics were probably decisive in his reelection.  How widespread is this conservative Christian movement in our culture?  Let’s think about this.

One very critical measure is what is occurring in the American workplace.  Thousands of businesses and other entities, from one-man operations to global corporations to divisions of the federal government, have made room for Christianity on the job.  There are faith-at-work newsletters and blogs and books with titles like “God @work,” “Believers in Business,” and “Loving Monday.”  These movements and ministries teach men and women to see their work as not just where they collect a check, but actually as a calling in life.  Most mainline Christian denominations have been slow to embrace the movement, because they have not recognized it as significant or have determined that it is not relevant to their mission.  But historic, biblical Christianity has always had a prophetic dimension to it, challenging the culture and speaking biblical truth to that culture.  Being a salt and light Christian demands that the Christian allow Scripture to shape and mold every decision and every aspect of life, including the workplace.  Christianity is wholistic and speaks to all aspects of faith and life.  To compartmentalize Christianity is to ignore its transformational power.

Christianity does speak to the workplace and its transformational power is penetrating the American workplace.  Several key biblical principles:

1. Since God ordained work (Genesis 2:18ff), humans find fulfillment in work; it is one of the keys to finding purpose in life.
2. Excellence is the worker’s standard.  God’s standard of excellence is the believer’s standard (see Ephesians 6:6-7).
3. Love, mutual respect, and justice must characterize the employer/employee relationship.
4. All professions and all kinds of work, assuming they are legal and biblically ethical, are honorable before the Lord.  All work brings glory to God and fulfillment to the human if it is done to God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31).
5. As the Christian disciple of Jesus follows a Christian work ethic, he or she manifests a powerful message, both verbal and nonverbal, of a supernatural approach to work.
6. Work is actually a form of worship, which cultivates an attitude of honesty, integrity and excellence. 

There is no sacred/secular dichotomy in biblical Christianity.  It is wholistic and encompasses all facets of life, including work.  The Faith-at Work movement is now exemplifying that proposition and the workplace is changing.  The Christian faith is not only making a difference in politics; it is transforming the workplace.

See James P. Eckman, Biblical Ethics, pp. 71-74 and Russell Shorto, “Faith at Work,” The New York Times Magazine (31 October 2004), pp. 40-69.

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