Waiting for a Messiah

If the views of the outgoing Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, as expressed to the Times' Deborah Solomon are any indication, it's going to take a looooong time to achieve peace in the Middle East.

You recently called Jimmy Carter a “bigot” after he met with Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas. Is it true you were reprimanded by the U.S. State Department?
--There was no complaint or reprimand. The only reaction I received was very positive.

The Bush administration, it seems, has not done much to advance the Mideast peace process. Would you agree?
--I think the key is in the Arab world. The Palestinians’ real tragedy is that they have not been able to produce a Nelson Mandela. Every single day, Muslims are killed by Muslims. You do not see a single Muslim leader get up and say, “Enough is enough.” It’s nearly as if we live in a world where if Christians kill Muslims, it’s a crusade. If Jews kill Muslims, it’s a massacre. And when Muslims kill Muslims, it’s the Weather Channel. Nobody cares.

Is he nuts? Yeah, calling a former American president a bigot brought him nothing by accolades--there's nothing like having a deaf and dumb person as your face to the world.

And sure, if there was a Palestinian Mandela, things would go much easier--but politics is the art of dealing with reality, not sitting around on your hands waiting for a saviour.

Besides which, the closest Israel's come to producing a Mandela was Yitzhak Rabin, whose policies were fought tooth-and-nail by a big chunk of the Israeli populace before he was assassinated by a countryman.