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Friday, September 12, 2003
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ALL WE ARE SAYING/IS GIVE PEACE A....OH, FUCK IT!
I was parusing the Jersusalem Post this morning and found this editorial. As you read it (and assuming the link skips the log-in requirement), remind yourself that the Post is one of Israel's more moderate newspapers.
"The world will not help us; we must help ourselves. We must kill as many of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders as possible, as quickly possible, while minimizing collateral damage, but not letting that damage stop us. And we must kill Yasser Arafat, because the world leaves us no alternative."
Wow! I mean, fucking wow! I've read several papers a day for years and I have yet to see an editorial that uses the phrase "we must kill" twice in the opening paragraph.
Not that I neccessarily disagree. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are terrorist swine who wholly deserve whatever comes of Israel's policy of "targeted assassination." This position is no different than the one the United States is taking in both Afghanistan and Iraq. For the Americans to oppose this is the height of hypocracy. No serious person believes that Osama bin Laden will ever survive to see the inside of a lower Manhattan courtroom. Why should the leaders of Hamas?
Arafat is a different issue. As much as I physically crave his death, to assassinate him causes far more problems than it solves. Should the State of Israel liquidate Arafat, the outrage in both Egypt and Jordan would demand a severing of relations with Israel, if not outright war. The governments in Cairo and Amman could easily be toppled assuring a wider war. The reaction of the European Community is uncertain. Both France and Germany, with huge Muslim populations, could sever relations with Israel or face rioting in Paris and Berlin. Very few, if any, countries could diplomatically support such a move.
"No one seriously argues with the fact that Arafat was preventing Mahmoud Abbas, the prime minister he appointed, from combating terrorism, to the extent that was willing to do so. Almost no one seriously disputes that Abbas on whom Israel, the US, and Europe had placed all their bets failed primarily because Arafat retained control of much of the security apparatus, and that Arafat wanted him to fail.
The new prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, clearly will fare no better, since he, if anything, has been trying to garner more power for Arafat, not less.
True enough, as far as it goes.
"Under these circumstances, the idea of exiling Arafat is gaining currency, but the standard objection is that he will be as much or more of a problem when free to travel the world than he is locked up in Ramallah."
Also, true. If anything, Arafat was more of a menace when living in exile in Beirut and Tunis. Exiling Arafat lifts any constraints that he's currently operating under. But killing Arafat lifts any consraints that some 2 million Palestinans are currently operating under. Isreal is currently fighting a police action against terrorist incidents. Killing Arafat would mean fighting a war against the Palestinan people.
"If only three countries Britain, France, and Germany joined the US in a total boycott of Arafat this would not be the case. If these countries did not speak with Arafat, it would not matter much who did, and however much a local Palestinian leader would claim to consult with Arafat, his power would be gone.
But such a boycott will not happen. Only now, after more than 800 Israelis have died in three years of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks, has Europe finally decided that Hamas is a terrorist organization. How much longer will it take before it cuts off Arafat? Yet Israel cannot accept a situation in which Arafat blocks any Palestinian break with terrorism, whether from here or in exile. Therefore, we are at another point in our history at which the diplomatic risks of defending ourselves are exceeded by the risks of not doing so."
This is also true, but an assassination of Arafat will not enhance Israel's security or its diplomatic position. It would assuredly worsen both.
"Such was the case in the Six Day War, when Israel was forced to launch a preemptive attack or accept destruction. And when Menachem Begin decided to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. And when Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield in Palestinian cities after the Passover Massacre of 2002.
In each case, Israel tried every fashion of restraint, every plea to the international community to take action that would avoid the need for "extreme" measures, all to no avail.
When the breaking point arrives, there is no point in taking half-measures. If we are going to be condemned in any case, we might as well do it right."
A distinction with a significant difference.The Six Day War and the strike on Osirak were responses to direct threats to the existance of Israel. The current situation, while horrible and intolerable, is not. A general war in the Middle East that would involve Egypt, Jordan, Syria and quite possibly Saudi Arabia and Iran would threaten the existance of Israel;and given that this war would result entirely from its own actions, Israel would lack the international, and possibly even American, support it could rely on in the past.
"Arafat's death at Israel's hands would not radicalize Arab opposition to Israel; just the opposite. The current jihad against us is being fueled by the perception that Israel is blocked from taking decisive action to defend itself."
This statement is too insane to comment on.
"Arafat's survival and power are a test of the proposition that it is possible to pursue a cause through terror and not have that cause rejected by the international community. Killing Arafat, more than any other act, would demonstrate that the tool of terror is unacceptable, even against Israel, even in the name of a Palestinian state.
Arafat does not just stand for terror, he stands for the refusal to make peace with Israel under any circumstances and within any borders."
Which is true, so far as it goes. That Arafat is swine is beyond dispute. Killing him would send a signal. But is it a signal to fight a war over?
"In this respect, there is no distinction, beyond the tactical, between him and Hamas."
Nonsense and the Israelis know it. It was, after all, the Mossad gave Hamas tactical support to in the early 1980's as a means of destabiling the PLO. They succeeded enough to drive Arafat to the negotiation table but as a means of his personal survival, Arafat had to co-exist at some level with Hamas. Just as the United States was instrumental in the creation of Al-Queda in Afghanistan, Isreal was instrumental in the creation of Hamas. The early 80's were a bad time for democracies breeding terrorists.
". Europe's refusal to utterly reject him condemns Palestinians, no less than Israelis, to endless war and dooms the possibility of the two-state solution the world claims to seek."
Also true, fuck Europe! They're irrelevant. Just ask Donald Rumsfeld. Okay, bad example.
"While the prospect of a Palestinian power vacuum is feared by some, the worst of all worlds is what exists now: Terrorists attack Israel at will under the umbrella of legitimacy provided by Arafat. Hamas would not be able to fill a post-Arafat vacuum; on the contrary, Hamas would lose the cover it has today."
Also nonsense. Terrorists don't need cover. They operated freely in Afghanistan, Algeria and Sudan for years. They would only lose "their cover" under a full-scale re-occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Which would lead to an accerlation of the Intifada and potentially war. The Palestinans are seeing how guerrilla operations are working in Iraq against U.S forces. They would operate equally well against the IDF. Suicide bombings every three weeks are tragic. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have the capability, between them, to carry them out every day.
"A word must be said here about the most common claim made by those who would not isolate Arafat, let alone kill him: that he is the elected leader of the Palestinian people. Even if Arafat was chosen in a truly free election (when does his term end?), which we would dispute, this does not close the question of his legitimacy."
This is irrelevant. Arafat's legitimacy is to be decided by the Palestinian people (who overwhelmingly support him) and the international community (which recognizes his election.In this case the perception is the reality. The sad fact is that everyone Israel is or has been forced to negotiate with wasn't placed in power through a modern democratic process. They were either installed through military coups or are monarchies established by Britain or France in 1919-21. Although questions have been raised about Arafat's margin of victory in a corrupt campaign, no one questions that victory or even whether it would happen in a "fair" election.
"Whom the Palestinians choose to lead them is none of our business, provided it is a free choice, and provided they do not opt for leaders who choose terror and aggression. So long as the Palestinians choose such a leadership, it should be held no more immune to counterattack by Israel than the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were by the United States."
True, but the consequences are very different. Just because you can do something doesn't make it wise. The United States is now learning this in Badhdad.
"We complain that a double standard is applied to us, and it is. But we cannot complain when we apply that double standard to ourselves. Arafat's survival, under our watchful eyes, is living testimony to our tolerance of that double standard. If we want another standard to be applied, we must begin by applying it ourselves."
This cannot be argued. A double standard is being applied to Israel and has been for decades. In the last three years, Israel has done nothing that no other country wouldn't have in similar circumstances. For the European Union, whose members include some of history's most brutal occupiers, to chastise democratic Israel would be laughable were it not obscene.
None of this changes the fact that an assissination of Yassir Arafat will lead to a regional war in a matter of weeks. In a best case scenario, terrorism would increase, not decrease in the re-occupied territories and Israel proper. And this the best case scenario.The worst case scenario is total war in the Middle East. Whether Arafat is a moderating influence on terror is now debateable. It wouldn't be after his death at Israeli hands.
Okay, honestly....I'll get back to dick jokes soon, I PROMISE!
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