Benjamin Netanyahu, perhaps the only man left in this world who makes Ariel Sharon seem like a delicate dove. Almost seven years ago, a young fan of Netanyahu gunned down Prime Minister Rabin on the conclusion of a large peace gathering in Tel Aviv. The bullet that went through Rabin's heart pierced his shirt pocket and the folded paper inside it, on which were inscribed the lyrics of a song Rabin had just sung to the rally -- "The Song of Peace." On Sept. 9, Netanyahu -- "Bibi" to his admirers -- is coming down to Montreal to sing the tune of war.

Seven years ago, Netanyahu responded to the signing of the Oslo Interim Agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians by declaring war: "We shall fight it," was the rallying cry, "and we shall bring the government down." A month later, Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down, and when the Israeli police apprehended the assassin, a young settler called Yigal Amar regurgitated the rhetoric of Netanyahu. Netanyahu said "international terrorism is the quintessential Middle East export." Amar said "the Palestinians are unreformed terrorists." Netanyahu said "carving Judea and Samaria (the West bank) out of Israel means carving up Israel." Amar said "a Jew who gives his land to the enemy must be killed." And so on, leading Israeli author Ze'ev Chafetz to remark: "as far as I am concerned, [Amar] pulled the trigger for them" -- the right wing fundamentalists, and of course that incessant bagpipe Benjamin Netanyahu.

A few months later, Netanyahu ran for the post of Prime Minister and won by a margin of 1 per cent. On his new government's foreign policy: "there will be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan river (in the West bank and Gaza)." He pledged to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, which contravenes both countless UN resolutions and the fourth Geneva Convention, in his quest for "Zionist fulfillment." By way of explanation, Netanyahu -- who is always one to flout his academic pretensions -- sets out to prove that there is no such as thing as Palestinians, to say nothing of their national aspirations.

Provocation after provocation marked his brief stay in the office, leading to intense Israeli-Palestinian clashes on Sept. 25, 1996 that left eighty Palestinians and fifteen Israelis dead. Netanyahu's term was a failure, during which the Palestinians were treated with contempt, treaties were broken and violated, while settlement construction sped up precisely as if there was no tomorrow.

The dissolution of his government in 1998 seemed at the time like a sigh of relief. But if you want to know when the death knell of the Oslo peace process was sounded, look no further than to these fateful two years, a period which Israeli historian Avi Shlaim aptly calls a "declaration of war on the peace process."

Today, Netanyahu is bent on deflating whatever hope there is to end the bloodshed in that scarred region. Last May, he managed to push forward a proposal in the party convention of the Likud (the right-wing Israeli party that is currently in power) that negates the right of Palestinians to self-determination in the West Bank and Gaza.

Committed to war, indifferent to the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis, Netanyahu does manage despite his sincerest intentions to unite the peace camps in Palestine and Israel to oppose the extremism and rejectionism he embodies. On Sept. 9, Jewish and Palestinians peace activists will be among the many who will converge in front of Concordia's Hall Building Auditorium, where Netanyahu's lecture is due to take place, in order to block the bloody march of war in an action organized by the newly formed Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East. All are welcome to join. Sept. 9 at 10:00 a.m.