LOOKING AROUND: Seize what opening?

(November 8) Middle East commentators in the US have long been generous with their advice. They have offered us guidelines for interrogating terrorists, criticized us for conducting humiliating interviews of potential hijackers at airports, mocked us for hunting down murderers with cell phones and toxic ear potion.

We took the criticism harder than they might have realized. Not only do we want to be loved among the nations, but part of our identity involves seeing ourselves as moral leaders.

The image of persecutors sat uneasily with us; we are, after all, commanded to be a "light unto the nations." Each day, we remind ourselves that our binding with God is a betrothal of righteousness, justice, kindness and mercy. Nothing infuriated us more than being cast as Big Bad Israelis by legions of patronizing foreign reporters.

Nearly all savvy political commentators advocated that we make major concessions to gain peace, as if we had wanted to hold onto Gaza because of its beachside real estate.

A short while ago, it was easier for those living abroad to urge us to be understanding of the dictator who sent terrorists to blow up our buses. Those proffering advice weren't yet wondering about the identity of their seatmate on the morning shuttle, or checking their kids' birthday cards for white powder.

But leading columnists are still telling us what to do, and it is getting under my freckled skin.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Thomas Friedman, one of the keenest minds in journalism, should have realized how much bitterness he would cause in Israel with his much-publicized sarcastic dressing down of the prime minister.

For those who missed it, Friedman's column was written as a letter from President Bush to "Ariel and Yasser," (as if they deserved equal reprimands). It was so widely circulated over e-mail that a teenager in Jerusalem told me he thought it had actually been penned by Bush.

"I have no problem with Israel retaliating against Palestinians who murder Israeli civilians," says Friedman's imagined president. "No one can object to that. When your snipers assassinated the Palestinian terrorist who organized the suicide bombing of the Tel Aviv disco, my spokesmen made clear we had no problem with that. But there's a red line for us. And the red line is if you try to use this situation, as some in your cabinet are urging, to destroy the Palestinian Authority and end Arafat's control in the West Bank and Gaza. If you do that now, and if total chaos erupts in the territories or, worse, Islamic radicals take over, which then forces you to reoccupy these areas, and that inflames the Arab-Muslim world, you will be seriously undermining our coalition against bin Laden."

What "situation" is it exactly that we're using, the American bombing of Afghanistan, the anthrax scare, or the constant terrorist attacks within our own towns and cities? For the long years of American bombing ahead, need we really prop up a corrupt dictator, the father of terrorism, who has shown himself incapable of making peace?

AN EQUALLY erudite journalist, New Yorker editor David Remnick, opened the magazine recently by debunking the myth that Israel is the main cause of Osama bin Laden's rage against the US. Like Hitler, Remnick says, bin Laden has "a sure instinct that the hatred of Jews is a timelessly convenient instrument of propaganda and cohesion."

So far so good. But Remnick cannot resist offering us advice, either.

"A decade ago, Yasser Arafat chose sides in the Gulf War. He chose Saddam Hussein. This time, he has denounced Osama bin Laden, expressed sympathy with the American losses, and discounted any solidarity between the Palestine Authority and al-Qaida. He even authorized his police to put down a pro-bin Laden demonstration in Gaza. There are countless reasons to dismiss this reversal as rank cynicism, beginning with Arafat's biography and ending with his exploitation of suicide bombers. But is it better to prolong an unwinnable war or to seize this opening?"

Friedman criticizes us for using a situation, Remnick for not using one. I'm not being cynical. Honest. But reading Remnick's words here in Jerusalem, I nearly wept. I simply don't get it. Does he really think that Arafat and the estimated 100,000 Palestinians who celebrated the fall of the Twin Towers have been reborn? What opening exactly does he think we can seize?

We've already voluntarily withdrawn from most of the West Bank and Gaza. Former prime minister Ehud Barak was willing to make radical territorial concessions and divide our beloved national capital. Anyone listening to the Palestinian rhetoric - or even to wizened experts who condemn our occupation of the West Bank - would never guess that there had been Oslo Accords.

Some of us believe that at Camp David, Barak showed imaginative strategy that might have ended the conflict in the Middle East. Others argue that Barak's formula was a recipe for national suicide, and that only Divine hardening of Arafat's heart caused him to reject such a deal.

But reject he did. Unable to get everything he wanted, the leader of the Palestinian people got up from the peace table and in effect declared a war of terrorism.

In the midst of this disastrous year, Israel has kept the channels of negotiation open should a glimmer of reason be detected. If we sound self-righteous, we deserve to.

Is Remnick suggesting we make the Camp David offer again, forgetting the past year of terrorism, or are we expected to come up with something even more tempting to woo Arafat back to the table? Arafat has already made clear that he will never give up terrorism until we have given him all of Jerusalem; nor will he agree to waiving the "right" of the refugees to settle in Israel after a Palestinian state is created.

A year of bloodshed has eroded the already slippery ground of trust in our current peace partners. How could it not have?

So when Remnick tells us "to seize this opening" with Arafat I think, "been there, done that."

We can't wish a settlement into existence any more than we can wish away the timeless hatred for Jews, or Americans can now wish themselves back to the world before September 11. Pretending that such opportunities are ours for the seizing is unfair.

"Without a settlement, the future for both Israelis and Palestinians is unbearable to predict," writes Remnick. Agonizing to predict, maybe, but not unbearable. Do not make the mistake of our enemies and underestimate our steadfastness. We have tasted the ashes of Auschwitz and experienced the return to Zion.

We're not going anywhere.