Pretend Arafat is dead

Editorial

When Adolf Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland in 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain convinced the Nazi leader not to go any further, getting assurances that Hitler was as committed as Chamberlain to securing "peace in our time." When Hitler went back on his word and stormed into the rest of Czechoslovakia, Poland and, ultimately, most of Europe, Chamberlain should have attempted to bring Hitler back to the table to negotiate further.

Similarly, when Osama bin Laden sent his operatives to drive planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, U.S. President George Bush should have invited the al-Qaeda leader to Camp David to discuss his concerns.

These outrageous scenarios are no more ludicrous than the idea that Israeli officials should again sit down and attempt to negotiate peace with Yasser Arafat. There is a human capacity for gullibility. Israel has surpassed it with Arafat. America has not.

Bush insists that Arafat must be at the table in any discussion of peace between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. Arafat is the elected leader of the Palestinian
people, argues the U.S. administration. By the same token, it could be argued, that Hitler was the people's choice at one time too. But perhaps a president like Bush, whose own election to office was concluded in the most tenuous of circumstances, may have a unique perspective on the mandate the Palestinians gave to Arafat, whenever their last "election" took place.

For America to ask Israel to return to negotiations with Arafat is as irresponsible as a marriage counsellor asking an abused spouse to return home for another beating.

The time for viewing the Israeli-Palestinian crisis as a two-sided conflict is over. The Palestinian people have some genuine and valid grievances. But Israel is not the main obstacle to seeing those grievances righted, Arafat is. This is no longer an issue of Israel suppressing the legitimate national objectives of the Palestinian people. It is a matter of the Palestinians' leader – a man who maintains power through patronage, corruption and, when necessary to maintain control, murder of his own people - choosing to put his own career as a revolutionary fighter ahead of the chance for peace. The Palestinian people live in a state of constant fear, poverty and insecurity not because of Israel, but because they are led by a murderous tyrant whose violent fantasies take precedence over feeding and educating his people.

At a banquet last Sunday for the Canadian Friends of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Norman Spector made some remarkably insightful comments. (See story, page 1.) He astonishingly theorizes that, if Arafat were out of the picture, there would be a Palestinian state within a year. The idea seems outrageous and yet, on consideration, who can argue that it is the old warrior Arafat who is the main barrier between Palestinian statehood and continued conflict?

Spector went on to say that Arafat cannot be trusted because he has no moral opposition to lying to anyone with whom he deals. Spector put the matter in clear context when he noted that Arafat believes that blowing up civilians is a legitimate political strategy, so how morally repugnant is a little white lie?

The American administration is certainly in a difficult position. If they want to bring the two parties together to negotiate a possible peace, they need to find the two most obvious parties to bring to the table. Arafat has been the undisputed leader of the Palestinians for decades. But those decades have not brought peace.

As well, the Americans need to reconcile their Mideast policy with the Bush Doctrine, adopted in the aftermath of Sept. 11. If they agree that Arafat is a terrorist, they cannot sit down and talk with him as if he is a legitimate leader. And if they see him as the sole Palestinian representative at the negotiaing table, they are prevented from calling him a terrorist.

But Arafat is a terrorist and must be recognized as such by the American government, as he has been by the Israeli government. The days of dealing with him have passed.

In Afghanistan, the Americans allied with the domestic opposition Northern Alliance there, defeating the Taliban regime. There is no obvious, reasonable opposition to Arafat among Palestinians (something which should speak volumes to those who argue that Arafat is the "elected" leader of his people).

However, there are more reasonable figures among the Palestinian leadership and those are the people with whom the world community needs to deal now.
The fact that Arafat walked out of his Ramallah compound alive last week is a testament to Israeli forbearance. As a terrorist and a provocateur, Arafat remains very much alive. As a potential partner for peace, Arafat is dead and should be treated that way by the international community.

^TOP