TEL AVIV: “Twins” was the caption on a placard bearing photos of Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden at a recent right-wing demonstration in Al-Quds.

It is a message Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also has tried to broadcast. Since Sept 11, Sharon and many on the Israeli right have been eager to convince the world that, as Sharon put it, “Arafat is our Osama bin Laden.” In the same vein of logic, they’ve also suggested that Arafat’s Palestinian Authority is analogous to Osama’s Al Qaida network.

Such reasoning is deeply flawed, and, not surprisingly, it hasn’t resonated very well with Washington or with the rest of the world. The trouble is that Palestinian Authority head Arafat, determined not to repeat the mistake he made during the Persian Gulf War when he allowed Palestinian grass-roots’ frustrations to push him into supporting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, has unequivocally and repeatedly condemned the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. He has expressed sympathy for the American victims and distanced himself from anti-American fundamentalism. He even gave blood during a much-ballyhooed Palestinian blood drive for American victims of the attacks.

Recently, having failed to convince the world that the Palestinian Authority was just like Al Qaida, Sharon has floated another analogy: that the Palestinian Authority is the equivalent of the Taliban, in that both regimes harbour ‘terrorists’.

But this argument, unveiled following the assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, is also flawed. Unlike the Taliban, which has still not condemned the attacks of Sept 11, Palestinian Authority leaders immediately spoke out against Zeevi’s assassination, which was carried out by members of the small opposition Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to avenge the assassination of their leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, two months earlier.

As much as Sharon would like it to be so, Arafat does not equal Osama or even Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. On the contrary, Arafat and his contemporaries in the mainstream Palestinian leadership probably offer the last chance for this generation of Israelis to arrive at a pragmatic solution to the conflict.

Arafat is unquestionably a flawed leader (not that Israeli leaders are paragons of perfection). He should have responded more favourably to then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer at Camp David last summer, even if it was inadequate from the Palestinian perspective. He should have jumped at the guidelines for an agreement set forth by then-president Bill Clinton last December. And he could and should do more to control Palestinian street violence.

The Israelis would prefer a Palestinian leader who possesses the combined qualities of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. They would like the Palestinians to take a Ghandhian, non-violent approach in their protests. But this is the Middle East, and things have a way of escalating here.

What we must keep in mind is this: Despite everything that has happened during the past year, this generation of Palestinian leaders remains committed to a negotiated political solution based on a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, alongside the state of Israel. And they have all participated in peace-oriented dialogues with Israelis.

Even now, with the prospects for peace looking bleak, dialogue continues. Last week, prominent Palestinian and Israeli participants in the dialogue process published a joint Israeli-Palestinian declaration in both the Israeli and Palestinian press, calling for “an immediate end to all violence, assassinations, settlement activity and a return to permanent status negotiations.” The statement asked for outside assistance, noting that “because of the current level of violence and mistrust,” talks would be doomed “without the help of the international community.”

If this generation fails to get an agreement, the next generation will have much more to overcome. Young Palestinians and Israelis have not experienced a process of constructive dialogue and so have little faith in it. And the new generation of Palestinians, nurtured on dashed hopes, despair, hatred and suicidal “heroism,” is unlikely to accept a two-state solution.

A future leadership led by Hamas (some of whose followers are already waving pictures of Osama) will guarantee that extremism will flourish in both Palestinian and Israeli societies.

As hundreds of thousands of Israelis come together on Saturday night in Tel Aviv to remember Rabin’s legacy on the sixth anniversary of his assassination, it’s important to recall something Rabin understood as well as anyone: Despite the difficulties, we have a window of opportunity for peace that will not be open forever, and failure to act now could have a devastating effect on future generations. —Dawn/The Los Angeles Times News Service.