Arafat's Irrelevance: Bush makes history.

National Review Online ^ | June 25, 2002 | James S. Robbins

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Peace finally has a chance. On Monday, President Bush announced a bold initiative for Israeli/Palestinian reconciliation, setting forth conditions that should have been set long ago. In so doing, he implicitly rejected the framework established by the 1993 Oslo Accords, and emphasized one point in particular — Yasser Arafat has got to go.

Arafat had a good thing going. Oslo rewarded his decades-long career of terrorism by handing him political power. The 1998 Wye River Accords gave him an additional $400 million in U.S. aid. The 2000 Camp David plan would have given him a state, had he not chosen to test his power and launch the second intifada. But now he is facing a U.S. president who is more confident of his place in history, more adept at wielding the diplomatic instrument, and frankly fed up. Through successive Israeli governments, Labor and Likud, Left and Right, soft-heart and hard-line, Arafat and violence have been the constants. It is a relationship too compelling to ignore. No wonder the Palestinian president was suddenly eager to accept the plan he had rejected in September of 2000, which gave him a state and left him in power. But few took Arafat's epiphany about the Clinton plan seriously. It was a desperation move, and it was too late.

As I have argued here before (War on Terror's Exception, He's Got a Ticket to Ride, The Upper Hand), so long as the United States guaranteed that Yasser Arafat was the sole indispensable man in the peace process, there would be no peace. The posture gave Arafat a remarkable degree of leverage. He never feared for his power, so he had no reason to make deals he did not like. His personal safety was assured, so he could turn a blind eye to terror attacks without fear of reprisal by Israel. He allowed radical groups to operate against Israel to make himself look like a moderate by comparison, undertaking nominal crackdowns when Western aid ran low. Furthermore, he was permitted to rig elections and stifle political dissent and free speech, which prevented any possibility of a peaceful opposition emerging. Throughout, the U.S. maintained that Arafat was a necessary participant in the peace process, and he did everything in his power to reinforce that bias.

But all of this was predicated on the assumption that Arafat was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. President Bush has rejected this premise. He has instead adopted the same moral position as underlay Ronald Reagan's historic doctrine — he has explicitly recognized that political legitimacy derives from the people themselves, and that leaders who murder their political opponents, prohibit a free press, repress free markets, and loot public coffers for private gain, can never be legitimate. In his statement he repeatedly calls on the Palestinian people (not Arafat) to pursue the goals of peace and democracy. He summons forth an effort of the Palestinian nation — the repository of rights, the basis for whatever legitimate sovereignty a Palestinian state could have — to earn their statehood. (This important distinction between rulers and ruled was noted here May 28.)

For his part, Arafat "welcomed the ideas" in the president's message. The PA stated that "these ideas include a serious contribution to advance the peace process." Which ideas in particular? Nabil Abu-Rudaynah, an Arafat adviser, said, "What concerns us in this statement or this U.S. speech is that they have called for the termination of occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state. The remaining details do not concern us at all." Someone should explain to this guy the concept of the conditional statement. It is like telling a car dealer that you like the part of the bargain where you get the car, but you are not so wild about the remaining details where you have to pay for it.

Examine the president's proposal in detail: "Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership ... I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. ... If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. ... And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state." There is nothing ambiguous about this. Even the nuanced language of diplomacy cannot explain away such an unequivocal series of statements. President Bush proceeds with Euclidean precision from premise to conclusion. He could not possibly mean that Arafat could continue in office and still benefit from the support of the United States, because the Palestinian president does not meet the two fundamental requirements. First, if ever a leader was "compromised by terror," Arafat is it. Furthermore, the President asks for new leaders. How can Arafat's gang miss that point? New, as in, not the guys who are in office now; as in, not you.

The radical Hamas group understood the proposal's conditions very well. They denounced the speech, and pledged to continue terrorist attacks against civilians — which only proves the president's point. Currently the IDF is carrying out a deadly counterterrorism operation against Hamas, and the group's leader, Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, is under house arrest in Gaza — an arrest ordered by Arafat and executed by PA security forces. No doubt it is for Yasin's protection, but this raises the question, if Arafat could take steps against Hamas now, why didn't he do it sooner? The answer is, because he did not have to.

Arafat is suddenly finding all kinds of motivation. A few hours before the president's speech he signed a decision to have elections in the PA by the end of 2002 or by March 2003 at the latest. His aides have stated that the elections themselves will fulfill the conditions of the Bush proposal. If Arafat wins, they argue, he will be the "new leader," with a "new government," and thus be eligible for support in working towards statehood. However, even if Arafat manages to rig the race, the conditions of the Bush plan would not be fulfilled. The president's proposal is concerned not with processes but results. Putting the same old terrorist back in charge is not sufficient, regardless of the mechanism used. "Reform must be more than cosmetic change or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo," the president said. "True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism." President Bush has redefined the terms of debate in a way that excludes Arafat from the discussion, and has, in one motion, brought him to the brink of irrelevance. He has also returned U.S. policy to its moral center by stating definitively that terrorism will not be rewarded. Clearly this is a president more comfortable making history than simply letting it happen.

— James S. Robbins is a national-security analyst & NRO contributor.

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If Arafat wins, they argue, he will be the "new leader," with a "new government,"

They do not have a clue. This will all be over by 2002. Arafat will be history.