Engaging in disengagement

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / By Meir Shlomo | April 11, 2005: "A FRIEND once told me that there are three types of people in the world: those who take part in shaping events and making things happen, those who watch events happen, and those who ask, ''what happened?"

The disengagement plan is one of the most difficult decisions that Israel has ever had to carry out. Israeli families will be uprooted from communities they have built and nurtured, leaving homes where they have lived for three decades. The decision to take such bold action was not easy; Sharon faced major opposition from both outside the government and within his own party. Nonetheless, history shows that remarkable things can happen when leaders are guided more by the best interests of their people than by political pressures.

While one cannot demand 100 percent success in everything Abbas does, we can and should demand that Chairman Abbas demonstrate at least the same resolve to achieve peace as Prime Minister Sharon. The choice to put everything on the line for the sake of peace is certainly not an easy one, but in the words of the late John F. Kennedy, ''to govern is to choose."

Meir Shlomo is the consul general of Israel to New England."

© 2005 The New York Times Company