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Adieu, Arafat?
The Economist | Dec 6th 2001

Posted on 12/07/2001 2:18:22 PM PST by monkeyshine

Middle East

Adieu, Arafat?

Dec 6th 2001
From The Economist print edition


Israel might be even less safe from terrorist outrages without him

Reuters
Reuters

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FROM September 11th until last weekend, George Bush's administration sturdily resisted Israel's pressure to squeeze its conflict with the Palestinians into the umbrella-shade of America's war on international terrorism. Instead, the Israeli government was urged, as so often before, to temper its response to Palestinian violence, to show restraint in the interests of an elusive peace and an anti-terrorist coalition. But the vile suicide-attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa, which killed at least 25 people and wounded many more, went too far. Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, who happened to be on Mr Bush's Washington doorstep at the time, seems to have been given the nod to defend his country as he sees fit. And how he sees fit is to respond to terrorism with an anti-terrorist war that the Israelis like to compare to America's own.

Israel's war, perhaps still in its early stages, is pointedly aimed at Yasser Arafat, his Palestinian Authority and its institutions. The Israeli cabinet has determined that the Palestinian Authority is an entity that supports terrorism; and that Tanzim (Fatah's field organisation) and Mr Arafat's own presidential guard are terrorist organisations.If Mr Arafat is to save himself and his regime, he must fulfil his commitment to prevent violence against Israel by arresting and prosecuting those who plot it or carry it out. The onus is squarely and solely on the Palestinian leader, say the Israelis, and the Americans, at least for the moment, are saying the same.

They are right in pointing out that the protection of Israel's security is an obligation that Mr Arafat has accepted. What they do not add is that Mr Sharon's policy of assassinating Palestinian militants, invading Palestinian towns and blowing up police stations has made the obligation unfulfillable. If Mr Arafat now gave orders for the wholesale arrest of the people whom Israel names as culpable, he would not be obeyed. Given Hamas's growing popularity with an embittered Palestinian population, he has difficulty in getting his Fatah security men to arrest Hamas leaders, let alone to arrest their fellows in Fatah. His people, under bombardment, are balking at the occupied being asked to provide security for the occupier.

The show can't go on

Mr Arafat has always run a one-man show, surrounded by cronies, with barely a hint of democracy. Now the show is in deep trouble. Though he takes the decisions, he likes to have a consensus behind him. But by trying to give a little bit of ground to everyone the Americans, the Israelis, his own people the Palestinian leader has ended up losing the trust of all three. In the 40 years or so since he founded, inspired and led the Palestinian liberation movement, Mr Arafat has survived many travails. He has been written off, wrongly, before. But he may now have been fatally weakened, partly by Israeli actions and partly by his own vacillations as the region twists in a cruel cycle of eye-for-an-eye vengeance.

His weakening, or so many people believe, may be part of Mr Sharon's longer-term intentions. Israel's prime minister does not have to carry his war on terrorism to the extreme, of eliminating Mr Arafat and his fellows. That would still be unacceptable to the Americans, and to the prime minister's Labour colleagues if they remain in his coalition (see article). Loss of control, and increasing irrelevance, may suffice. Mr Sharon's long practice has been to make ad hoc agreements with local leaders, while preserving Israel's overall control. He may hope to do the same again, while bringing in ever more settlers to make the transfer of land ever more remote.

The absence of a convincing Palestinian central government could absolve Mr Sharon from the land-for-peace obligations that, from deep conviction, he finds so hard to accept. He could not, when he became prime minister, go back on the Oslo peace accords. Although he opposed them, Israel was committed, and most Israelis saw the treaties as paths to the lasting peace that they craved. Now, however, the peace process has dematerialised: in the face of the intifada and Israel's response to it, only a head-in-the-clouds optimist can believe that a genuine land-for-peace agreement has any chance of being put back on the table any time soon. With a mortally wounded Palestinian Authority, the prospect is even bleaker.

The radicals in the wings

If no glimmer of light is to be found in all this gritty darkness, is Mr Arafat's survival essential? In other circumstances, it would be easy to agree that he was well past retirement age. Brilliant as a resistance leader, he has turned out to be rotten at government, leading his people into wretchedness. He has failed to prevent a year of Palestinian violence against Israel, turning a blind eye to terrorism. He is a poor negotiator, tumbling into traps. Above all, he has lost control. His successors, secular or Islamist, would almost certainly present a more cohesive programme and would probably be more democratic. But, reflecting the current Palestinian consensus, they would also be more radical in their policies towards Israel.

The Palestinians' point of view is rather simple: they believe that they are an occupied people fighting a colonial war against their military occupier. They do not accept that they were offered a fair deal last year. Unlike Mr Arafat, they have probably given up on any good coming out of the American connection. And most of them consider their terrorist strikes on Israel, let alone their attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers, to be a just response to the Israeli strikes that, in the past 14 months, have killed nearly 800 of their people, many of them as innocent as the Israeli victims in Jerusalem and Haifa.

Outsiders do not have to accept the Palestinians' vision of themselves to recognise, and try to check, the danger of the course that the Israeli government is now pursuing. A Palestinian leader who has lost control may sound expendable. But his departure is unlikely to open the way for a regime that is both in control and prepared to co-operate with any workable formula for peace. Mr Arafat has plainly failed to please everyone. But if he is harried by the Israelis into oblivion, his successors, at great cost to the region, may have an agenda that has no interest in, and no chance of, pleasing anyone.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
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The floor is now open for discussion.
1 posted on 12/07/2001 2:18:22 PM PST by monkeyshine
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To: monkeyshine
Sorry, the links don't work because they refer only to the economist's website.
2 posted on 12/07/2001 2:23:31 PM PST by monkeyshine
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To: DoughtyOne; dennisw; Lent; Sabramerican; meridia; Yehuda; onyx; xm177e2; d4now; veronica; JohnHuang2
if you don't want me to ping you just let me know.
3 posted on 12/07/2001 2:25:52 PM PST by monkeyshine
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To: monkeyshine
Israel might be even less safe from terrorist outrages without him

That was always Arafat's threat. "Tolerate my terror, or things will be even worse!"

4 posted on 12/07/2001 2:27:04 PM PST by xm177e2
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To: xm177e2
Yeah. But what to do when his terror becomes intolerable?
5 posted on 12/07/2001 2:31:55 PM PST by monkeyshine
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To: monkeyshine
The Economist is a rabidly Anti-Israel publication. You can see from the bias in the article. Arafat "did not prevent terrorist attacks" was their formulation. The fact is he deliberately planned and executed a terrorist war. His intelligence chief (named Tirawi) runs the whole terrorist operation.
6 posted on 12/07/2001 2:33:55 PM PST by LarryM
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To: LarryM
They think they try to be balanced about it.
7 posted on 12/07/2001 2:38:14 PM PST by monkeyshine
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To: LarryM; monkeyshine
The Economist is a rabidly Anti-Israel publication. You can see from the bias in the article.

Yup... The usual crud from these Brits. I could care less if Arafat is gone. Even the Israel haters on this forum detest Arafat who just ain't cool anymore it seems.

If someone worse than Arafat comes in or PallieLand sinks into fratricidal chaos who really cares? I sure don't.
If Pallies grow more crazy then Israel gets a chance to really wrap up the whole deal once and for all/

8 posted on 12/07/2001 2:47:02 PM PST by dennisw
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To: monkeyshine
Although Arab populations surely have the same bell-curve of intelligence as exists elsewhere in the human race (some smart, most average, some dumb), Arab culture in general, and Palestinian culture in particular is as stupid as a box of rocks. If they had accepted the Barak deal, even with its flaws, they would have been on the road to getting many things that they wanted, including economic gains and better lives for all their people. Instead, they've chosen to fight and die for an impossibility. And keep their people rock-bottom rock-stupid stinking-poor in the process.

How should this concern the USA? Perhaps in this way: let the Israelis do their worst. Let the Palestinians hate America as much as they want. In fact, America is probably safer in an atmosphere of maximum distrust and belligerence. In that kind of atmosphere we have our guard up, we are suspicious of Palestinians and other Arabs coming into our country. As we should be. In the previous era, pre-9/11, we were sanguine. We thought the Arabs loved us. We were wrong. They want to murder us as much as they want to murder Israelis. Discord in the Middle East probably will make the USA a safer place, because it will hopefully prevent us from sagging back into our own rock-stupid-ClintOOnesque-sense-of-security.

To Israel I say: fight on.

To the USA I say: vigilance.

9 posted on 12/07/2001 2:47:31 PM PST by samtheman
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To: samtheman
If they had accepted the Barak deal, even with its flaws, they would have been on the road to getting many things that they wanted, including economic gains and better lives for all their people.

To believe this is to buy the Arab propaganda. They want Israel gone period. The Palistinian state they want is the one now called Israel.

How should this concern the USA?

Because we are sworn to protect Israel as the only democracy in the area. Israel was created by the UN with our support. We must protect them.

10 posted on 12/07/2001 3:01:22 PM PST by Mind-numbed Robot
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To: samtheman
I am complete agreement with you except for the small corrections above.
11 posted on 12/07/2001 3:02:32 PM PST by Mind-numbed Robot
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To: monkeyshine
Let me see, rock throwing on a daily basis. Sniper fire every 48 hours. Rockets incoming every 72 hours. Suicide bombings on a weekly basis. Massive bombings on a monthly basis. Well it may just get worse after Arafat. And the next guy can be rubbed out too. Until the PLO gets it through their head that this stuff is going to stop, I'd advise Israel to keep engaged rather than let this be totally one sided. Israel has been way way way more restrained than I would have been. And if I were a citizen of Israel I'd have been screaming for Arafat's head!
12 posted on 12/07/2001 3:10:16 PM PST by DoughtyOne
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To: monkeyshine
"The Palestinians' point of view is rather simple: they believe that they are an occupied people fighting a colonial war against their military occupier. They do not accept that they were offered a fair deal last year."

Remember, when the Palestinians say 'occupied territories', they mean all of Israel. So, if the Palestinian people believe they are occupied and fighting a war against their military occupier, they want war. They must then accept the consequences. You can keep starting wars, lose, then say "do over". That's what the Arab world has been doing for 50 years.

BTW, the Palestinian People don't know about the deal Arafat turned down. When reporters have told Palestinians about it, they've been stunned and disbelieving.

13 posted on 12/07/2001 3:12:31 PM PST by Kermit
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To: DoughtyOne; samtheman; dennisw
Nassar and Sadat figured it out. They were wasting too many precious resources fighting, whilst their people suffered. They decided to make peace in order to spend more time on important domestic issues. Until the Palestinians figure it out, they will continue to suffer.
14 posted on 12/07/2001 3:16:03 PM PST by monkeyshine
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To: samtheman
very true what you say
15 posted on 12/07/2001 3:19:41 PM PST by dennisw
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To: monkeyshine
I agree. The Israelis are not the only losers in all this. The 60% or so of Palestinians who are unemployed as a result of the actions of Yasser Arafat and the members of Hezballah and the Hamas, are those living in misery for nothing.
16 posted on 12/07/2001 3:21:15 PM PST by DoughtyOne
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To: monkeyshine
No, Hamas or Hezbollah would have to shi'ite, or get off the pot! they will have to choose war or peace, not the Clintifada crapola.
17 posted on 12/07/2001 3:23:30 PM PST by sheik yerbouty
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To: samtheman
Although Arab populations surely have the same bell-curve of intelligence as exists elsewhere in the human race (some smart, most average, some dumb), Arab culture in general, and Palestinian culture in particular is as stupid as a box of rocks.

Even with graduate degrees, Arab types rant like juvenile delinquents; and I believe this is how they behave within their own culture. They lie, cheat and turn on each other, whenever it looks brighter. One reason Israel has won militarily, is the Arab tendency to surrender under fire, turn brother on brother, etc.

Clearly Israel and America SHOULD do an immediate reality check, and ready themselves for battle against terrorists, NGO, States, whatever. Anyone with an active brain cell knows Arafat has been a terrorist, since his meetings with fellow travelers, in Cuba in the 60s. The past compulsion to negotiate with known terrorists is now functionally obsolete.

18 posted on 12/07/2001 10:18:54 PM PST by truth_seeker
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To: truth_seeker
Even with graduate degrees, Arab types rant like juvenile delinquents; and I believe this is how they behave within their own culture.

Is it Dennis Miller who says, "and now a word from the Palestinian spokesman" and then shrieks into the camera?

19 posted on 12/08/2001 12:40:14 AM PST by samtheman
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