Posted on 06/25/2002 6:22:18 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Neither lightly nor hastily did President Bush issue his political verdict on Yasser Arafat, the veteran elected leader of the Palestinian national movement. The president's ruling that achieving peace requires "a new, different Palestinian leadership," and his unusual call to the Palestinian people to choose other leaders who are "not compromised by terror," came after a long, two-year series of American mediating missions and attempts to achieve a single goal: to reduce the violence and resume the political process.
Domestic political concerns that contributed to the shape of the speech can be identified. But cynicism is not the point. It must be recognized that by ruling out Arafat, with blunt revulsion for him as someone who "traded in terror," the president gave authentic voice to a broad and profound attitude that has swept across America since September 11.
No less important and to the point, as far as Israel is concerned, was Bush's inherent acceptance of the argument that the Palestinian Authority, under Arafat's leadership, "rejected Israel's outstretched hand." With that, and in the details of the president's vision about an Arafat-less future in our region, the president appears not to have departed from the permanent, long-standing position of the United States with regard to the conflict. It's not a Sharon-style, shrunken, truncated Palestinian state that the president expects to see alongside Israel. Like all his predecessors since 1967, Bush made clear that the day will come when Israel must leave the vast majority of the territories.
But according to Bush, that process toward statehood cannot begin until the terror ceases, which means a change in the current Palestinian leadership. The president's "disappointment" in Arafat has become final and absolute. He has no more hopes of him.
Among the Palestinians, and what is referred to in general as the "Arab street," Bush's speech was not received with sympathy. The administration apparently expects that when the immediate storm subsides, mainstream leaders in the Arab world will lend a hand to weaken Arafat's grip on Palestinian government. The administration also apparently hopes to find a positive, albeit reserved, response in Europe to the president's rejection of Arafat.
There is logic in the criticism voiced against Bush for presenting a vision without drawing a road map to achieve it. The administration cannot, of course, make do with the speech alone. It will have to undertake consistent, determined activity, to fill it with content. But the speech's strength outweighs its flaws: it is the clearest voice yet to be heard against Palestinian terrorism. The president of the United States told the Palestinians that if they continue with terrorism, they will not get a state.
In the short run, Bush's speech could increase the already present risks in the IDF's broad-scale operations, by creating a tempting political vacuum on the Palestinian side. The government of Israel should not be seduced into thinking that it has been given a green light to reoccupy all the Palestinian towns and territories. In the delicate, complicated situation that has been created, it is up to the IDF to act with maximum restraint.
This is probably the clearest, most level headed analysis of the speech I have seen yet. Everyone is going on and on about how the Palestinian people will choose their own leaders, not the American President. Well, that's what Bush said too. The Palestinian people MUST choose. Either choose new leaders without connections to terror and get the state they want, along with economic help, a world that will bend over backward to make sure they are safe and successful, OR choose Arafat and they will never get a state. NEVER.
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