CLICK Pact marks true end of postwar era

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this as caly CLICK -CLICK CLiCK CLiCK CLiCK CLICK CLiCK 1 - STAR TRIBUNE Pact marks true end of postwar era Past loosened its hold in Rabin-Arafat handshake on White House lawn BOSTON - The same phrase and U.S.S.R.

But beyond that, for was repeated again and again, until it became the distillation of many Jews this period was dark- ened by the shadow of the Holo- everyone's wonder, the common denominator of everyone's quiet shock: "I never thought I would ELLEN GOODMAN caust Palestine was opened to Jews nearly a hundred years ago in a see this." British version of a joint custody Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser arrangement.

But Israel had its Arafat. The Israeli and the Pales. tinian did not just represent each other's enemies but each other's demons. Parents in Tel Aviv and children in the Gaza Strip have lost sons, daughters, brothers, fathers at each others' hands, Yet there the two sides were, in a ceremony of gravity and sol- emmity, full of biblical references and cadences.

The Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres, signing a paper promising to recognize the "devil" as the legitimate repre- sentative of the Palestinian peo- ple. The PLO official, Mahmoud Abbas, signing a paper renouncing terrorism and acknowledging the existence of the nation they had promised to wipe off the map. There they were, all of them, shaking hands. Shaking hands.

And witnesses saying: I never thought I would see it. Students of body language may analyze the torturously slow ascent of Rabin's hand to meet Arafat's hand. "This signing -.. is not so easy." Rabin had said so- berly and his difficulty was palpa- ble. It was if he were lifting an enormous weight at the end of his arm. But in that handshake, the past loosened its hold.

For all the caution, for all the caveats about first steps, the Jew- ish New Year that begins this week may mark the true end of the postwar period. The unending Middle East crisis was, after all. as permanent a part of the post- war landscape as the Cold War that divided the world into U.S. moral and then martial birth in the postwar climate.

To the world's Jews, for whom the relentless history of anti-Semi- tism climaxed with the Holocaust. Israel became a homeland in Rob- ert Frost's sense of home: the place where, when you had to go there, they had to take you in. From the beginning, Israel was David surrounded by the Arab Go- lath, always beleaguered, always on the defensive, the brink of extinction.

In 1967, the Six Day War became a euphoric coun terpoint to that fear of disaster and to the memory of helpless- ness of European Jews being led to slaughter. But over the past decade, the proud image of the Six Day War became the painful image of the Intifada.

The moral image of the Jewish army in self-defense came to include a murkier, more trou- bling image of the Israeli soldiers aiming weapons at Palestinian boys throwing stones.

When Rabin became minister, this prime skeptical old warrior who was born in Palestine told his country and its friends that the time had come to stop thinking "the whole world is against us." The end of the postwar period does not mean the denial of histo pain.

But in President Clinton's words, the Middle East was so "drenched in warfare and hatred" that "many believed the past would always have the upper hand." Instead, on a morning in Sep- tember, two old enemies, with their devils and demons, shook hands. As Rabin said in his deep. flat, sad voice, "Enough of blood and tears. I never thought I'd see it.

(Goodman is a syndicated columnist)

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"CLICK Pact marks true end of postwar era," Pottsville Republican, 15 September 1993. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1993-022. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1993-022