WASHINGTON, 4 December — President Bush harshly condemned on Sunday the suicide bombings in Israel as “horrific acts of murder” and insisted that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat find the men responsible for the bombings and bring them to justice.
Arafat acted quickly, imposing a “state of emergency” in the Occupied Territories, and arresting over 100 suspected Hamas sympathizers. But there are now early reports that the Israelis have retaliated by bombing “targeted sites” within the Occupied Territories.
Tension is palatable in Washington.
The conservative Washington Times has used the Hamas bombings to criticize Secretary of State Colin Powell’s recent foreign policy statement where he called for the creation of “two states, side by side, Israel and Palestine.”
“The Bush administration would be well-advised to follow the advice of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Let Israel give Mr. Arafat a choice, just as Washington did with the Taleban.... Mr. Arafat also should be compelled to choose between remaining in the terrorism-by-proxy business and staying in power. If he opts to stay in the terror business, Israel would be well within its rights to make Mr. Arafat pay the ultimate price,” the Times wrote, without specifying what it meant by the “ultimate price.”
“Almost every time an effort is made to advance peace negotiations, extremists respond with crimes meant to shock and freeze the process — and more often than not, their primitive strategy succeeds,” the lead editorial in yesterday’s Washington Post said, and called for clear thinking.
“In this case the Palestinian terrorist groups clearly intended to destroy the mission of US envoy Anthony Zinni, who arrived in the region a week ago to press home a cease-fire plan that depended on cracking down on extremists by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. This time, the terrorists should not be allowed to achieve their aims.”
“The key ingredient missing from US policy are consequences,” said Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute, a pro-Israeli think tank. “Time and again the US has told Arafat that the moment of truth has arrived regarding the need for him to fight terror. After Sept. 11, our threshold needs to be much lower for waiting for Arafat to do what is necessary. An opportunity is slipping away right now regarding finding a silver lining in this week’s terrorist attacks to compel Arafat to do what is necessary if the peace process is to have any chance to succeed.”
Satloff called for the Bush administration to reign in Arafat, and punish him.
“What is needed most of all is a clear set of US consequences for Arafat’s failure to act. Here I would draw on the lesson of President Bush Senior, who, in 1990, suspended relations with the PLO when it was clear that Arafat was unwilling to fight terrorism within the Palestinian Authority.”
When asked about Arafat’s immediate arrest of over 100 suspected Hamas sympathizers, Satloff was unimpressed. “The arrests are inadequate. What is adequate is irrevocably shutting down the infrastructure of Hamas, Jihad and the factions of Fatah that have aligned themselves with the radical terrorist groups.”
Satloff said Arafat could easily accomplish this, as “these forces are all in Arafat’s constituency. There are, at most, 2,000-armed members of the radical organization and there are thousands within Arafat’s apparatus, this is not as though it would be a major battle.”
When reminded that some people fear this could lead to a Palestinian civil war, Satloff said he did not believe this would happen. “No, the overwhelming forces of coercion are in Arafat’s control. As I said, there are very relatively very few armed members of Jihad, and many thousand of his security apparatus. If Arafat is not in control of his security apparatus, then he may not be the relative player.”
David Mack, vice president of the Washington-based Middle East Institute and former US ambassador to the Middle East, had a different, but tough, perspective: “There are no winners in this. First of all, Arafat is now faced with a defining decision for him that he’s been avoiding for several decades now — which is: Does he want to be the leader of the Palestinian people, or does he want to be the president of a Palestinian state? He cannot be both.
“Arafat seems to be ambivalent on where he wants to jump on this very critical question. At the time of Oslo, he seemed to know what he wanted to do. But now it seems that it is very hard for him to take very difficult steps, especially for those in the Diaspora who would not understand why he would take these actions — that would ultimately lead to economic prosperity for those in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Mack then looked at what he called “Sharon’s dilemma”.
“He was elected by promising the Israel public he would make them feel more secure. This has failed, despite Israel’s assassinations, collective punishments, bombings, and overall actions. It would be hard to say that Israelis feel more secure as a result of what he is doing, even though they don’t see any alternative.
“Four Palestinians are now killed for every Israeli, would they feel more secure if 10 were killed for every Israeli?” asked Mack. “So, no matter how strong he is in military repression, this is still not resulting in any political solution.”
Mack said this causes a real dilemma for President Bush and the US: “We should be ‘doing’ the peace process for couple of reasons. It is the right thing to do for Arafat and Israel, and it is in the long-term interest for both of them. Second, it protects our other interests in the area, including our most immediate, our need to have Arab and Muslim allies in our campaign against global terrorism, because it threatens them as well as us, and unless they become pro-active in dealing in this in a proactive way, all of our interests will suffer.”
Lamis Andoni, a Boston-based analyst of Middle East and US policy, is more critical. She blamed the US media for “failing to give equal witness. They justify all Israeli action and ignore the fact of the occupations and the targeted bombings.
“This goes back to the way the US sees Arafat, who is now seen as an enforcer of Israel security. He is judged accordingly, and in my view, this is beyond arrogance.”
Andoni, who is close communication with Palestinian leaders, said, “the Israelis were shocked by the Intifada, and never expected it. They want to end it, and they simply have to end of occupation to end the Intifada.
“Resistance comes in many forms; nobody can deny that those attacks did not come out from vacuum. Occupation is systematic and borders on violence, this is being glossed over by the US administration and the media,” said Andoni.
Asked what will happen next, Andoni was not optimistic: “I think there will be more pressure on Arafat to crack down on his people, curb their liberties and crack down on human rights, adding to the Israel’s violation on human rights. Even if the talks were resumed, it would be disastrous beginning, because if you start the talks by suppressing the Palestinian people, and denying them their rights, then there will be no faith in the peace process as far as the Palestinians are concerned.
“But even without the bombings, the hope was thin because although Powell talked about the need to end the occupation, he made it conditional on unilateral cease of violence by the Palestinians; this is a very lopsided approach.”
