Posted on 12/04/2001 4:52:30 AM PST by SJackson
FOR most Israelis, the endless speculation among foreign observers over whether Yasser Arafat can or cannot control Palestinian terrorism has become an affront to our intelligence. If he can control the terrorists and chooses not to, he's an accomplice. If he can't control the terrorists, he's hopelessly ineffectual.
Either way, he's no partner for peace.
The demand by President Bush that Arafat dismantle the infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad comes too late. Arafat has been given too many last chances.
Even if as a result of American pressure he undertakes what appear to be serious moves against Hamas, those will inevitably be temporary, and jailed suspects will be quietly released when the Western media have lost interest. In the seven years he has governed, not one terrorist has been tried and jailed long-term for attacks against Israeli civilians.
Expecting Arafat to finally mount an anti-terrorism campaign ignores the fact that his Fatah and Tanzim loyalists are now openly collaborating with the fundamentalist terrorists. The shooting attack on an outdoor market in the northern town of Afula last week was carried out by two gunmen, one from Islamic Jihad, the other from Fatah. In the surreal world of Palestine, the enemies of peace and the proponents of peace are the same people.
In fact, the only serious debate occurring among Israelis about Arafat is whether he's actively giving the order for attacks or merely winking an eye and turning the other way.
In response to the four Palestinian attacks of mass murder in the last week, Israel must suspend all negotiations with Arafat, declare the demise of the Oslo peace process and officially label the Palestinian Authority a terrorist entity.
Under Oslo, Arafat promised to renounce violence. Yet throughout the Oslo process--with brief intervals in response to American pressure--he has allowed Hamas to entrench and operate with immunity. Still, he managed to convince the American and Israeli governments that he was the preferable alternative to Hamas. Now, though, it's clear that the only difference between Arafat and Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin is that the latter hasn't yet been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.
Operationally, Saturday night's attack in the center of Israel's capital was an impressive success. Despite high police alert, the terrorists managed to insert two suicide bombers into the city and park a car bomb set to detonate when rescue workers would be filling the street. The terrorists' growing sophistication is due to the logistical and emotional support provided by Arafat's regime.
Ironically, that regime is a self-inflicted Israeli wound. After the Persian Gulf War and Arafat's passionate support for Saddam Hussein, the Palestinian leader was an outcast even in the Arab world.
On its own disastrous initiative, Israel resurrected Arafat, placed police uniforms on his terrorists and gave them guns and lobbied for international funding for his emerging state. Arafat has used those funds not to build schools and hospitals but to arm a dozen security services, which in the last year have become support systems for terrorism.
Under his watch, the refugees continue to languish in Gaza camps, awaiting the fantasy of repatriation to their vanished homes in Israel, rather than building new lives in the Palestinian homeland.
However tempting and justified, Israel is unlikely to personally target Arafat, if only to avoid complicating America's relationship with the Arab world.
Still, we can no longer maintain the illusion of Arafat as a partner for a future deal, or even for a limited cease-fire. In its war against terrorism, Israel needs to act as if Arafat and his authority no longer exist.
JWR contributor Yossi Klein Halevi is the Israel correspondent for the New Republic and a senior writer for the Jerusalem Report.
That's exactly how I have seen it all along. "Charade" is a good word... so's "fraud," or "swindle...."
What more can one say?
Perhaps. But the west's failure to recognize Arafat and the PLO for what they are, terrorists determined to drive Israel from the middle east, has helped him along the way.
This is a legitimate gripe on the part of the Palestinians, and Arafat knows it. It's precisely why those folks are kept in camps, and prevented from building new lives. As long as they've got a hope of returning to "their" homes (most of them were probably born in the camps, so it's just an ancestral thing), they will gladly provide cannon fodder for the terrorists.
Israel has to face this problem honestly -- if it can. Somehow those Palestinians have got to be mollified.
But the Palestinian Authority has the first responsibility -- to allow Israel to be secure enough in its own borders to be able to contemplate it.
And of course, they're completely unwilling to do so: their choices are to defeat Israel, fight a never-ending war with Israel, or to accept the existence of Israel. Their influence and authority is ensured only by conquest or war -- so that's what they'll always choose.
Which says that Israel has no choice but to go for the win.
Don’t forget, Israel didn’t put them in those camps, Jordan and Egypt did. The Arab nations prevented them from building new lives long before 67. “Cannon Fodder” is precisely what they’ve been used for.
But the Palestinian Authority has the first responsibility -- to allow Israel to be secure enough in its own borders to be able to contemplate it.
If the Arab world had allowed Israel to be secure in her borders, there would have been no wars, no occupied territories (they were occupied precisely to secure Israel's borders), no camps. That has not been their agenda, and isn’t today.
True -- but that's not really what I was talking about. Look again at what the author says:
awaiting the fantasy of repatriation to their vanished homes in Israel, rather than building new lives in the Palestinian homeland.
Any normal-thinking Palestinian probably translates this to say: "Even if your family did live here before, we're here now, and we're not leaving. Sucks to be you -- now, go live someplace else."
In real life that's exactly what the Palestinians ought to do: Israel's not going away. But the Palestinians have two choices available to them: either go along with the statement, or fight against it.
But either way they've got a point, and Israel is going to have to address it somehow.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.