Arafat's assassination will not resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict

Last Thursday, The Jerusalem Post, of which I am a director, ran a leader that began as follows: "The world will not help us; we must help ourselves. We must kill as many of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders as possible... And we must kill Yasser Arafat."

Yesterday, Israel's deputy prime minister, Ehud Olmert, announced that Arafat's assassination was an option. Why a government would announce such a move, so disastrous in PR terms, is a mystery, but then subtlety has never been a hallmark of Likud.

Arafat is a terrorist leader and a mass murderer. After founding Fatah in the early 1960s, he was both the political and military arm of his own organisation. He plays good cop and bad cop with perfect synchronicity. For 40 years he has organised destruction. Arafat the terror master had Black September massacre Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Arafat the peacemaker stood on the White House lawn shaking hands with Rabin, but in 2002 the same Arafat funded, through his Palestinian Preventive Security Service, the "Karin A", a ship full of heavy arms from Iran destined for the Palestinian Authority in contravention of every agreement from Oslo to the road map.

Arafat makes tactical denunciations of violence and denies involvement in anything but bake sales and good governance, even while directing Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades whose avowed aim is the elimination of a Jewish State of Israel. He congratulates the families of suicide bombers and encourages Palestinian children to become martyrs. In interviews, Arafat has said that his goal is a Palestine that encompasses all of Israel. It took Arafat only 88 days to pull the rug from under Abu Mazen's premiership, during which time 64 Israelis were murdered and more than 1,000 wounded.

Scores of terrorists and war criminals have been executed for less. The question isn't whether the killing of Arafat would be a moral act - I believe it would - but whether it would be a helpful one. It has taken many Israelis a long time to face the fact that Arafat and most of the region are rejectionists, not in search of a genuine two-state solution but dedicated to the annihilation of Israel.

If Israelis have been reluctant to face this, it is hardly surprising that the world should take longer. Indeed, a number of Israelis, including deeply patriotic leaders, risked their lives - Rabin gave his - for the illusion that, except for a militant minority who operated either under a quasi-Marxist banner or a fundamentalist one, the Arab Street, and not just Egypt or Jordan, would accept the notion of a Jewish homeland if they could get the same for the Palestinians.

They had to believe this; otherwise there would have been no point to the negotiations in Oslo or Camp David except to negotiate Israel out of existence - which, of course, is precisely what the Palestinian right of return is about.

Still, a man who creates, as Arafat did, Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe), to coincide with the birth of Israel in 1948 and designates it as a day of mourning each year, cannot be accused of hiding his true colours. When Arafat refused Ehud Barak's offer of virtually everything he wanted except for the "right of return" to Israel for millions of Arabs, a three-word euphemism for the demographic destruction of a Jewish state, Dennis Ross, Bill Clinton's chief negotiator, summed it up: "He doesn't want a deal.''

We are at a point where neither his exile nor unnatural death would resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Once, you could exile a trouble-maker to some remote island and reduce his effectiveness as a leader, but those days are gone. We do live in a global village. What would putting Arafat in the Sudan do? Osama bin Laden may or may not be alive in the mountains of Afghanistan, but his spirit still causes us to be body-searched if we want to get on a plane in Manchester or Des Moines.

One can never predict the consequences of an assassination, but I think it is too late to kill Arafat. Had Arafat been eliminated 20 years ago, the situation might be different. Now the conflict has a momentum of its own, whoever the Palestinian leader. What is so dreadful to face and was so comforting to deny is that the majority of Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East as well as in some other countries are by now rejectionists as well.

Increasingly, Muslims outside the Middle East find themselves infected by the spirit of our times; they are being pulled into a malicious myth in which the antagonist is named Israel and, by extension, America and its allies.

This fight between Arabs and Israelis is not about settlements or the establishment of a Palestinian state. It cannot be solved by Israel going back to the 1967 borders when it is the 1948 creation of a Jewish state the Palestinians want reversed. Now, for the first time, between the resurgence of Islam, the emergence of suicide bombers, the radicalisation of the Palestinians and the indifference of the world, this goal seems attainable.

Given the UN's Third World bloc, the cowardice of the EU, the opportunism of countries intent on oil contracts or power politics and the puerile ignorance of most media reports on the Middle East, one understands why rejectionist Muslims feel the wind blowing their way. After all, the world has no fear of Jews blowing up buildings or becoming suicide bombers.

It is true that if enmity were eternal, no peace could never be made. But I am increasingly of the terrifying view that this conflict in the Middle East is not amenable to a peaceful solution and can only be solved by the total victory of one side. This means the Arabs annihilating the Israelis or the Israelis being forced to use every means, not excluding nuclear power, to defend themselves. If you are a nation of under six million people surrounded by 70 million enemies who don't accept your existence, the only option is to fight to the death.

There is one solution. It costs nothing, not one penny, not one human life or bullet and would turn the tide. If all major powers - preferably through the UN or simply in concert - were to make a joint declaration guaranteeing Israel's existence as a Jewish State, it would be clear to the rejectionists that they could not reach their goal. If the EU, Russia, China and the US reiterated that the UN declaration establishing a homeland for the Jews is as honourable today as it was in 1948; confirmed that Israel had the right to defend itself by all means and at the same time committed themselves to the establishment of a Palestinian state so long as it is not aimed at replacing the Jewish state but had a parallel existence, such a declaration would alter the ambience of the times.

But since an astigmatic world will not do that, Israel will probably have to fight. Israelis are already blamed for imposing a "military" solution without having the benefits of a genuine military offensive. Whatever the outcome, the cost to Palestinians and Israelis will be immense.

If the platoons of liberals now talking of peace and understanding would turn their energies to obtaining a joint proclamation of the genuine right to existence for two states, the sands of Arabia might yet avoid being soaked in blood.

I've said on here before that there's no sense in making a martyr of him, given his age and the fact that peace isn't coming anytime soon. But when even this author makes the following statement, the whole position taken seems to be silly:

If you are a nation of under six million people surrounded by 70 million enemies who don't accept your existence, the only option is to fight to the death.

Is he/she serious about that fight or not? For crying out loud, just kill him before a Dem is back in office and having tea with him again.

Why not play by their rules. The Israeli commando team that is poised to "take out" Arafat is sent to Switzerland. His wife and daughter are hijacked! Arafat is given a choice!

O Heck! We don't play that way! Kidnap him, cut off his lips and shove them up his "ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies!"

As Israel sets its sights on Arafat, it is time for the US Administration to prepare the ground for the obituary of this man of the people.

Transcripts and video of Arafat’s meetings with Presidents and State Department officials focusing upon his role as a peace maker need to be released now.

The major channels and the BBC should be encouraged to make documentaries about Yasser by dangling the carrot of exclusive tapes and access to former Presidents and Secretaries. It is essential for the West to manufacture Arafat’s image as an untiring leader dedicated to bringing peace to the conflict.

Israel will be condemned what ever happens to Arafat, but it is best left said that his demise will be less problematic than his exile, preferably by his own hand.
The US must condemn Israel for the incident and the rhetoric used must generate the icon of a great statesman worldwide and elevate him to sainthood.

Messages of his persistent struggle for a solution must ring across Europe and the Middle East. His great dreams and ambitions for peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis must not be allowed to fail. We must continue with the road map. We must move on and follow his example.

The short term for Israel would be painful but the long term would be beyond our wildest expectations.
It would be an irony that Arafat in choosing to become a martyr,be converted against his final desires into a martyr for peace. Yasser Arafat should be the West’s first and last martyr moulded in its own image.

If all major powers - preferably through the UN or simply in concert - were to make a joint declaration guaranteeing Israel's existence as a Jewish State, it would be clear to the rejectionists that they could not reach their goal.

This is false.

This is delusional.

agree w/ all the posters,

however, would you folks not agree with me that the admission by a mainstream Israeli journalist that ultimately the solution is total victory by one side or the other is monumental (IMO).

in short, it seems as if the 50-60% of the israeli public that has for too long flirted with accomdation with the jihadis has FINALLY woken up. (took a decade and thousands of innocents) but we are at a point where you gotto to choose.

either line up with uri avenry and other appeasers along side the plo/hamas, or join the rest of us and call out for total war.

as strange as this may read, this article gives me hope.

jabo.

this conflict in the Middle East is not amenable to a peaceful solution and can only be solved by the total victory of one side. This means the Arabs annihilating the Israelis or the Israelis being forced to use every means, not excluding nuclear power, to defend themselves. If you are a nation of under six million people surrounded by 70 million enemies who don't accept your existence, the only option is to fight to the death.

Gee, you think?

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