Mbeki honours Arafat, Rabin

2004-11-12 22:36

Cape Town - The leaders and people of Israel and Palestine should honour the memories of Yasser Arafat and assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by acting practically to achieve the "peace of the brave", said President Thabo Mbeki on Friday.

He was paying tribute to the Palestinian president in his weekly newsletter on the African National Congress' website, ANC Today.

Mbeki said it had been claimed Arafat's defining fault was that he could not bring himself to graduate from being a guerrilla fighter or "terrorist", to become a statesman.

He said: "It has been said that when the chance to achieve a just and honourable peace came, he turned away from an historic moment that would have enabled his people at last to realise their right to self-determination, independent statehood and peace."

'Arafat spoke about peace of the brave'

However, even as Arafat spent more than two years in confinement in Ramallah, "presented as an uncommon criminal, but a criminal nevertheless", Arafat spoke about his commitment to the peace of the brave.

Mbeki said: "I have listened to him many times as he spoke about the peace of the brave.

"I have heard him many times speaking about his partner in the struggle to achieve the peace of the brave the late Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin."

Some heard Arafat's words about the peace of the brave as mere rhetorical deceit.

Arafat lost his partner, and Israel and Palestine lost an historic opportunity to conclude a just and permanent peace.

Mbeki said: "In the end, there must, and will, be peace between Israel and Palestine. There must, and will, be peace between Israel and the Arab world."

The violent days of the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis, brought about by the lack of courage boldly to take to the peace road, which was sustained by the belief that statesmanship consisted in a deadly competition about the use of force, would also come to an end.

Relations between Israel and Palestine

"It will then be possible for everybody, both friend and foe, to say Yasser Arafat was correct to speak about the peace of the brave.

"It should be possible even now, as we say farewell to a great human being and fighter for freedom, Yasser Arafat.

The leaders and people of Israel and Palestine should honour the memories of Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin by acting practically to achieve the peace of the brave, said Mbeki.

"Like his partner Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat understood and accepted that whatever might have happened in the past, Israel and Palestine had no choice but to construct a relationship that would amaze the world.

"This would be a relationship that would amaze the world because it would be based on the fundamental principles of peace, friendship, respect, solidarity and mutually beneficial co-operation between Palestine and Israel.

- SAPA