Posted on 1/30/02 6:21 PM Pacific by Davea
Selling the 'Samson option'
Analysis By Herb Keinon
(January 31) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in his conversation yesterday with Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, undoubtedly discussed how Israel's policies are driving the region to the brink of disaster.
This line of argument, used by Mubarak on innumerable occasions with Israeli and Egyptian interlocutors, says the current violence will spill over and ignite the streets of Amman, Cairo, and Riyadh, leading to a massive conflict with apocalyptic consequences for the region and the world.
By mouthing this argument, Mubarak is propagating what diplomatic officials in Israel refer to as Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's "Samson option." The Samson option, named after the Biblical figure who brought the walls tumbling down, is the Palestinian nuclear option, without the bomb.
If Arafat would employ this option, a senior diplomatic official said yesterday, it would mean killing dozens of Israelis daily - by rocket attacks on airplanes, suicide bombers, and the machine gun strafing of public places.
The aim of this tactic is to threaten the Arab world, the US, and Europe with a "total blast" to force them to pressure Israel, and to force Israel to keep its hands off Arafat.
Whether the Palestinians have the means to create this type of havoc, to bring about this "big bang," is debatable. But right now the very perception of this capability is already having its effect.
Certainly the Egyptians are worried about this, the diplomatic official said, because such a "big bang" would have enormous repercussions in Egypt. Arafat, by waving this option, is threatening to destabilize the entire region if his demands are not met.
The specter of the Samson option has also had its impact on the Europeans. Monday's EU declaration that Israel needs Arafat as a "partner" is a direct result of the fear Arafat will unleash his Samson option if he feels his back is against the wall, the diplomatic official said. But according to the official, what the European declaration will do is actually prolong the violence, rather than somehow curtail it.
The declaration, which states "Israel needs the Palestinian Authority and its elected president, Yasser Arafat, as a partner to negotiate with, both in order to eradicate terrorism and to work towards peace," gives him breathing space.
It signaled to Arafat there are cracks in what needs to be an iron wall of world pressure. This world pressure, together with continuous military pressure, is the "cocktail" Israel believes will eventually spur Arafat into action.
A Foreign Ministry cable from Washington yesterday said that if - in the cautions world of diplomatic-speak - President George W. Bush spoke Friday of being "very disappointed" in Arafat, one can only imagine what is being said about him behind Washington's closed doors.
"To contain Arafat," the diplomatic official said, "it is necessary he get a clear message from everyone that he has no room to maneuver." The Americans took a giant step forward in that direction over the weekend. The Europeans, on Monday, took a similar step backward.
The end result, the official said, will be to prolong the current attrition, and "the danger is that the attrition will get out of hand." The official said the bomb discovered last week near a wedding hall in Jerusalem packed enough explosives to have taken down the entire building, killing dozens, if not hundreds, of people.
Such an attack, he warned, would have prompted an unprecedented military action from Israel as well. The downward spiral fall would have been precipitous.
The Europeans are not the only ones sending signals to Arafat there is no need for him to change his policies, the official said. Similar signals are coming from within Israel itself.
According to this official, who is not at all identified with Likud or the Right, Arafat hears the growing calls for unilateral separation (which he said is a euphemism for withdrawal) within Israel. Likewise, Arafat also hears about reserve officers refusing to serve in the territories, and of Tel Aviv women setting up an organization along the Four Mothers model instrumental in leading to Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon.
The accumulative effect of this, according to the senior diplomatic official, is Arafat "says to himself, 'Let's push a little more, let's kill a few more Israelis, and then they will eventually run away - just like they did in Lebanon."
Well it has certainly had that effect on the US. The winner-take-all system for congresscritters and presidential electors is thought to be the reason for the two party system and the moderation of the parties, as compared to parties in Parliamentary systems with proportional representation. Of course this has the effect of ossifying the political structure when there hasn't been a new major party in 155 years! The effect of third-parties, though, has been to change the two major parties, as they adjust their policies to absorb the members of the third parties.