It's been suggested that he should take the Zionist tack of taking what you can get, and then trying for more. I'm not a strategist, so I don't know
For once I must agree with you -- it is a Zionist tack. It is also a tack of every nation-state on earth: they try for the most they can get, and they try for more if they can get it. All nation-states are in the game for their own advantage. The main difference is that democracies consider the prosperity of their people as their advantage, while dictatorships only consider the prosperity (and survival) of the government as an advantage.
Israel, like many other nation-states, has a good sense of what is possible between states, when and how to strike bargains. This is the sense that the Palestinians completely lack. Time and again, they pursue ruinous policies rather than compromise.
By every rule of self-interest, the Palestinians should have tried for the best deal they could get at Oslo, which would have meant actually building credibility by abiding by their written accords. Then they could have tried for more with a protest and PR campaign, which they are obviously good at -- getting world sympathy while blowing up innocent civilians is a tough job, even if you have the advantage of blowing up Jews, and they have done it.
But no. Arafat couldn't change his spots. He's been a liar and terrorist all his life; he couldn't change even when it would have profited him. Arafat always survives by trimming and temporizing and avoiding decisions; if he had decided to abide by Oslo, he would have had to put down Hamas. That would have required decisive action. He couldn't do it.
Besides, when there was peace, the Palestinians noticed how corrupt and rotten his government was; the Fatah was beginning to shoot Arafat's ministers when he saved himself with this intifada.
Arafat was so weak, he couldn't even take the deal as a ruse, though it would have been to his advantage, compared to starting the intifada when he did.
Instead, he just tried to appease everybody, talking peace in the West, war in the East, and preparing for war. He has pleased no one. His credit has just about run out in the West, and he has brought a disaster to the Palestinians.
If the Palestinians were able to function politically, they would get rid of him themselves, but they can't. Arafat has been successful in making sure that he remains the one indispensable man in Palestinian politics no matter how big a disaster he is. So it looks like the Palestinians will follow him off the cliff. |
