¶ … feud between Israel's Ariel Sharon and Palestine's Yasser Arafat, and the role of Hamas in the feud. Specifically, it will discuss subjectively some possible resolutions or helpful ideas to facilitate peace. Palestine and Israel are both carved out of ancient land in the Middle East, and their religious differences have spawned war ever since Israel was first created after World War II. Today, peace still seems far away in the Middle East, for a variety of reasons, including a longstanding feud between Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat.
The feud between Israel's Ariel Sharon and Palestine's Yasser Arafat goes back many years, and it is difficult to predict how it will end, or if it will ever end. There seems to be so much bad blood between Palestine and Israel that their differences may never end in peace. Yasser Arafat has been a leader in Palestine for... years, and he and Ariel Sharon have butted heads before. However, much of the current strife harkens back to the early 1990s, when Arafat released several terrorists from prison, including some who had ties to the terrorist group Hamas. Hamas is an Islamic terrorist group dedicated to regaining Palestinian lands from the Israelis. The Israelis feel Arafat is not doing enough to control terrorism, and his release of these prisoners seems to back up these claims. In fact, many experts believe that Arafat does not do more to counter terrorism because it would create a dangerous rift with his own people, and he could literally be signing his own death warrant if he cooperated more fully with the Israelis. However, the root of the feud goes much deeper.
In 1972, a terrorist group called Black September assassinated 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. This group allegedly had ties to Yasser Arafat's own Fatah faction, and Israel has never forgotten. Sharon has made mention of it several times over the years. However, in Palestine, Sharon is not regarded any more highly than Arafat is in Israel. In 1982, forces under Sharon's command invaded Lebanon, allegedly to wipe out Arafat's PLO forces, but they massacred some 800 to 1,000 people, including children, during their raid. Palestine considers Sharon a war criminal because of this. However, their history really goes back to 1948, and the creation of Israel, when both men were quite young. Sharon was a military leader in charge of seeking out Arab terrorists, and Arafat was creating his first terrorist group while fighting Israel during the Suez War in 1956. It seems the two men have always been at odds. Therefore, the history between the two men is long and volatile, and it shows no signs of abating as tensions continue to flare in the Middle East.
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