Posted on 04/22/2003 5:24:16 AM PDT by SJackson
At this writing, we do not know the result of what seems to be a power struggle between Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, his long-time partner and reluctantly-appointed prime minister. It is worth recalling, however, that what is good and important about this moment is the direct result of policies that were ridiculed and lambasted just a short time ago.
First to the good and important. Assuming that the struggle between Arafat and Abbas, who is more widely known as Abu Mazen, is a real one, it is over whether to end the current Palestinian terrorist offensive against Israel.
Despite the recent lack of "successful" attacks, this offensive continues apace, with some half-dozen attempted suicide attacks in recent days alone.
The struggle, which seems to hinge on Abu Mazen's determination to give Muhammad Dahlan authority over security matters, highlights the fact that Yasser Arafat is and always has been the principal obstacle to any meaningful peace process, let alone peace agreement.
In a sense, the struggle is a lose-lose one for Arafat: Either he "wins" and sends Abu Mazen packing so that terrorism can continue, rendering his own eviction from the region an inevitability, or he loses and must hand over real authority to Abu Mazen and his cabinet. In either case, the terror campaign will be ended.
Three key events brought this about. One year ago, after the Seder massacre at Netanya's Park Hotel, Israel finally launched Operation Defensive Shield, in which the IDF systematically pursued terrorists throughout all the Palestinian cities. Israel was vilified for daring to attempt the "military solution" that had been widely dismissed as foolish, futile, and counterproductive even among sophisticated local opinion, let alone in the US and Europe. The campaign to delegitimize Israel's self-defense was capped off with the fabrication of Jenin, in which the Palestinians simultaneously claimed to have fought like tigers and to have been massacred like defenseless sheep.
After one week of this military campaign, the blaring calls against Israel became so great that US President George W. Bush declared "enough is enough." But a short time later came the second key event, Bush's June 24 speech on Palestinian democracy.
This speech broke almost all the rules and was attacked almost as vituperatively as Israel's counteroffensive itself. Instead of the usual blaming of "both sides" for the "cycle of violence," Bush promised the Palestinians a state, but laid at their doorstep the challenge of earning it. He had finally come to the conclusion that it was not Israel's fighting back that was the problem, but a Palestinian leadership that must be changed if peace were to have a chance. Though Arafat had rejected the state offered him at Camp David, refused to negotiate, and reneged on his pledge to end terror, the idea that the Palestinian leadership could be responsible for the lack of peace was treated as sacrilege not only by most of the world, but by our own most prominent peace processors.
Shimon Peres called the Bush speech "a fatal mistake," and Haim Ramon, Shlomo Ben-Ami, and Yossi Beilin were similarly negative. Top pundits agreed. Writing in Ma'ariv, columnist Chemi Shalev commented, "This overtly unbalanced speech will only further complicate the situation... Bush's speech might have been a giant step for Ariel Sharon, but it was probably a very small step for the chances of peace."
Orly Azulai-Katz, reporting from Washington for Yediot Aharonot, mourned, "Those who dreamed that the president's speech would spark new hope had their dreams dashed: Bush proposed a peace process and buried it with his own speech. Even Arafat's opponents will come to his defense in the face of the American tyranny." Her colleague Ofer Shelah wrote that Bush "included only a promise that, while the roses in the White House are blooming, the only red we will see in our streets and theirs will not be that of blossoming roses."
Now nearly everyone, including Europeans and Palestinians, admits both that Arafat is the obstacle that the US and Israel have said he is and that the Bush speech set in motion the moves to sideline him.
The third key event, of course, was the ousting of Saddam Hussein, which were also told would inflame the Muslim world and distract from the war against terrorism. Now the Palestinian press seems to be taking from Saddam's fall the idea that other corrupt and brutal Arab regimes should be counting their days as well.
Lesson one is that blaming Israel for being attacked does not help, while holding Palestinians accountable for their actions and future does. Lesson two is that defeating terrorism militarily is a prerequisite to anything approaching peace and democracy, whether in Ramallah or in Baghdad.
The only roadmap that will lead to peace is the one that will send every "palestinian" elsewhere, preferrably somewhere presided over by irate red critters with horns.
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