Posted on 11/05/2004 1:58:27 PM PST by yonif
Dennis Ross' promotional book tour brought him to Connecticut twice this year, and he'll be in Springfield later this month. In his talks, Ross notes that his greatest mistake during his reign as peacemaker supreme was to underestimate the intransigence of Yasser Arafat and his ability to obstruct any meaningful movement towards peace with Israel. In other words, it was all Arafat's fault.
Ross is not alone in this conclusion. It's an easy one to get to and eliminates the need to be bothered by inconvenient facts like the nature and disposition of the Arab world towards Israel and Jews, which is amply demonstrated in a bloody history that stretches back to the early 1900s. And if it's all Arafat's fault, then, we can ignore the polls that tell us Arabs continue, by large pluralities, to support suicide bombings. The Arab culture and the Arab polity that spreads across the Middle East are as fixated today with the destruction of Israel as they've always been and Arafat is but one leader of one faction in this huge group of people. This conflict today is what it has always been: an Arab-Israeli one.
The Arab campaign against Israel has also reignited the age old virus of antisemitism. Even in a polite society like France, synagogues are bombed and Jews are accosted in public. Arafat's hate and incitement plays a role in this revival too, but antisemitism preceded Arafat by centuries, and he is just one in a long line of history's Jew haters. The fact is that Arafat has never really changed no matter what we've thought of him and antisemitism has always been a constant in determining his outlook and behavior.
Yasser Arafat has been able to fool most of the people most of the time. He is a demigod to the masses in the Arab world, and in Europe he is a champion of the Arab people. In the West he is regularly promoted as Israel's partner for peace. And Arafat has a Nobel Peace Prize, which makes it easy for Sen. John Kerry to say (as he did in his 1997 book, "The New War"), that Arafat had made the "transformation from outlaw to statesman."
Just 12 years ago, America's Jews gushed over Yasser as he shook hands on the White House lawn and pledged to abide by the tenets of the Oslo Accord while at the same time in Arabic he was telling his own people to continue their war against Israel. But to those who are familiar with Arafat's record, he has been a criminal since the very start of his bloody career. Israel has always known this, but the facts now show that it was Arafat who gave the order to murder U.S. Ambassador to the Sudan Cleo Noel and two other Americans being held hostage in 1973. It's also clear that the killing of Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics was a precedent for his lifetime career of spreading murder and mayhem. With all of this known about him, Arafat was the foreign leader who visited the White House most in the 90s, and as Rabbi Daniel Lappin says, if Clinton were still in office today, it is likely that Arafat would be in Bethesda for his medical care instead of Paris.
We've always made Arafat into whatever we've wanted to be, and now prior to his death, there are some among us who see in his passing the keys to peace. This creates a danger to Israel and the real question is what pressures Israel will be forced to withstand after he dies: pressures no doubt that will be inimical to her self-interest and survival. Arafat's passing brings Israel to a very dangerous place.
Arafat dead or Arafat alive doesn't change much. Israel still will have no true friends in the Arab world. Arafat's death doesn't take the missiles out of Iran's hands or the tanks off of Israel's border with Syria. It doesn't warm the Israeli peace with Egypt or stop the flow of suicide bombers into Tel Aviv. Hamas, Hizbollah and all the other assorted terrorists won't disappear. Problems will take on a different shape and form, but the nature of the Arab world's belligerence will be the same. With the passing of Arafat, the leadership of in the Arab world won't be much different either..
Arab leaders are chosen through a combination of force and violence, and until that changes, there's little hope that an affinity will spring up between Israel and her neighbors. "Palestinian" Arabs will choose their leader in the same way they chose Arafat, and he will brutally claw his way to the top of the pile to consolidate his power in the same way Arafat did. Israel is no more secure with this kind of leadership next door than she was while Arafat was smiling at the cameras by day and overseeing Israeli death and destruction at night.
Here in the U.S., the danger is that our own State Department echoes Dennis Ross' outlook: it wasn't our policy that was wrong, but Arafat's perfidy. Add to that our diplomat's deeply held belief that they can negoriate with anybody any time about someone else's security and we're close to the European solution: forcee Israel to make unilateral concessions and the world's conflict with Arab-Muslims will be over.
The problem isn't Arafat and it won't be solved by his death. It goes much deeper. If we allow Arab guile and our own gullibility obscure the true nature of the Arab threat , then Israel as she always does, will pay the price in the blood of her people.
Ping.
Agreed. Don't see 'peace' on the horizon.
How can anyone not understand this truth? [sigh]
Not any more.
The problem isn't Arafat and it won't be solved by his death.Yeah, but it can't hurt. ;')
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Bravo. Exactly.
BTTTTTTT
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