| [TabletMag] Many post-Orientalists, in the tradition of Edward Saďd, have predicted the outbreak of democracy any decade now, from the 1990s to the "Arab Spring." Thus, while Yasser Arafat's "no" at Camp David shocked Bill Clinton, Dennis Ross, and a public fed on the idea of a win-win peace process, those familiar with the values of Arafat's primary honor-group predicted that rejection. If "that which has been taken by force must be regained by force," then nothing Arafat "got" in negotiations could possibly wash away the shame of a cowardly stroke of the pen that legitimized Dar al Harb in the midst of Dar al Islam. As a result, while Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak (and, reportedly, some younger Palestinian negotiators) mourned, Arafat returned to the Middle East a hero. |