Report: Arafat willing to include Hamas in new Palestinian leadership group

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat is prepared to include the militant Hamas group in a new Palestinian leadership organization that would function alongside the Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian newspaper reported Monday.

The Al Ayyam daily, which is close to Arafat's Fatah faction, said Arafat was willing to include Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant organization, in a unified leadership group, though it did not specify what the group's function would be.

In the past Palestinian Authority officials have said they would be willing to cooperate with Hamas if it recognized the authority's leadership. Hamas has so far not responded to the proposals.

Al Ayyam quoted Fatah Central Committee member Hani al-Hassan as saying the new leadership group could easily coexist alongside the existing leadership structure.

"Forming a unified Palestinian leadership does not contradict the Palestinian Authority as it is an internal Palestinian factional issue," it quoted him as saying.

Arafat's critics have accused him of being an autocratic leader, unwilling to share power with his prime minister and refusing to groom a successor.

Over the past several days, the Palestinian Authority has been holding meetings with Palestinian militant groups on how to run the Gaza Strip after a possible Israeli withdrawal.

Hamas has so far not agreed to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority in running Gaza.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/0404weiss0404.html

A world obsessed with Arab anger
Craig Weiss, Apr. 4, 2004

Israel landed a devastating blow at Palestinian terror by assassinating Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas, two weeks ago. Yassin was responsible for directing terror attacks that claimed the lives of hundreds of Israelis and tens of Americans.

In a too-familiar scene, the United Nations Security Council swiftly voted to condemn Israel's focused response to Palestinian terror. Although the United States vetoed this preposterous resolution, the Bush administration admonished Israel for escalating tensions in the region.

The purported justification for these criticisms is that Israel's action threatens to increase Palestinian rage, and thus to promote further acts of terror.

Both the Security Council vote and the U.S. criticism reveal a dangerous mind-set that threatens American and Israeli lives. The accepted worldview is that when fighting terror, one must avoid actions that are liable to enrage the Arab world, however effective and justified those actions might otherwise be.

Under this principle, however, Muslim extremists have veto power over any effective counterterrorism policy. After every successful Israeli strike against a Palestinian terrorist, we are accustomed to seeing television images of angry Palestinians firing AK-47s in the air and chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." Hamas' new leader recently labeled George W. Bush an "enemy of God."

The United States was not deterred by the threat of Arab rage after 9/11. The result was the dismantling of two despotic regimes.

Far from increasing Arab rage, America's victories have inspired fear among those who wish to cause us harm. Lybia, which once sent terrorists to bomb Pan Am Flight 103, is now voluntarily dismantling its nuclear arms program.

Similarly, a serious look at the numbers shows that Israel's policy of targeted assassinations has had the effect of decreasing, not increasing, terrorism. Israel began a serious campaign of targeting terrorist leaders in early 2003, resulting in a 50 percent decrease in the number of Israeli victims of terror as compared with the previous year.

Israel's policy has also saved Palestinian lives, as the number of Palestinian dead decreased by 30 percent over the same period. Without terrorist ringleaders around to send unwitting Palestinian children and adolescents to murder Israeli civilians, the region will continue to become less tense and more peaceful.

Yet, the world maintains its obsession with Arab anger. The most common tactic used by those who wish to legitimize Arab rage is to stress the need to explore the "root causes" of terrorism.

According to this view, terrorists who murder children have some reason for doing so, which, after investigation, will lead the rest of us to better understand them. Of course, no perceived or actual wrong can justify the targeted, mass slaughter of innocent civilians.

In the case of Israel, the accepted view is that Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are the root cause of Palestinian terrorism. This position not only legitimizes terrorism, but it condones racism and genocide. We should not respect or cater to the emotions of people who are moved to kill because they do not like the religious persuasion of their neighbors.

Tellingly, while world leaders are preoccupied over rage in the Arab world, there seems to be no concern whatsoever about the emotional stability of Westerners. Is anyone worried that if there is one more suicide bombing in Israel, Jews will start blowing themselves up in Palestinian pizza parlors? Was the world concerned that after 9/11, enraged Americans would fly planes into Saudi Arabian buildings?

A more sensible evaluation of Arab anger should consider those things that do not rile Arab emotions. We should ask why Palestinians do not seem to mind that while their economic situation is desperate, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has embezzled more than a billion dollars. (Just last month, French authorities discovered that Arafat had wired $10 million to his wife so she could rent an entire hotel floor for herself at $16,000 a night).

We must ask why Palestinians are angry enough to blow up Israeli children, yet unperturbed that local terror leaders seduce their young sons into committing murder with the absurd promise that such acts will grant them 72 virgins. The lack of Palestinian anger over self-inflicted crimes highlights the dysfunction of Palestinian anger directed at Israel's efforts to defend itself.

By catering to the murderous rage of Arab terrorists, we only promote more rage. Arab anger is an internal Arab problem that we cannot tame, and that only they can solve. They must free themselves from a murderous fury that, in the case of the Palestinians, prevents them from building positive communities based on laudable values. We cannot do this for them.

If the West is going to win the war on terror, we need to stop becoming distracted with what may or may not enrage Arab radicals, and start focusing on the most effective way to defeat Arab terrorists. Israel's targeted killings of terrorist masterminds is a good start.

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