Thursday, December 20, 2001 Tevet 5, 5762 Israel Time: 19:12 (GMT+2)
Analysis / PM pleased with Arafat's PR efforts on Israel's behalf
By Uzi Benziman, Ha'aretz Correspondent
When Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat gave his other, more militant, televised speech this week, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon turned to those around him and said: "He doesn't even require us to explain. He explains it better than we do." By this he meant that Arafat is doing Israel's work.
The speech in which he described the fundamental Palestinian perception of the State of Israel and its future caused the positive impression left on world public opinion (and on some in Israel) by his earlier speech, in which he ostensibly called for a cessation of terror, to completely evaporate. Sharon may not have focused right away on the severity of the positions outlined by Arafat; he was more likely referring to the immediate impression conveyed (which PA officials tried to dispel afterward), i.e., that Arafat was praising the shahid (suicide martyr) phenomenon. In any case, a day later, the prime minister received the military intelligence's analysis of the speech to read. The analysis only confirmed his initial impression: The Arafat who appeared on December 11 is a rigid, zealous and obsessive ideologue professing the Muslim-Arab doctrine that denies Israel's right to exist as a state fulfilling the Zionist vision.
There is good reason to despair once again in the face of the ever higher and thicker walls blocking any resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the one hand, these walls are strengthened by the Israeli appetite for more territory and the indifference to injustice engendered by the occupation. But more bricks are constantly being added to the barriers of hatred by energetic Palestinian incitement, a failure to acknowledge the facts that have been created here over the last hundred years and a refusal to recognize the Jewish people's right to a state of its own. Events in the field cause both cycles to feed upon themselves and to collide with one another.
This is what Arafat told a Palestinian gathering at the Casablanca hotel in Ramallah: "Our people have been facing this plot ever since the Zionist Congress in Basel, where the phrase, 'A land without a people for a people without a land,' was coined. 104 years later, our people are still standing strong against the magnitude of this plot and all the schemers since Sykes-Pico. I wish to point out that Palestine was not among the lands chosen by the Zionists after the Congress in Basel. They chose Africa and South America, but not Palestine. Only in Sykes-Pico was it decided that they would establish themselves in Palestine. But in Palestine there is a nation of giants, a people with a historic mission. This mission is not just Palestinian, but Arab, Christian and Muslim, since we are the guardians of the holy places of Christianity and Islam."
What Arafat had to say about the refugee problem is no cause for celebration, either. He basically confirmed the perceptions of Minister Dan Meridor, who returned from Camp David last year frustrated and worried about the Palestinian delegation's stance on the issue of the right of return. While others who participated in the Camp David summit (and, later, the Taba talks) assert that this volatile issue was indeed resolvable, Arafat's remarks on the matter and his reiteration of Palestinian demands concerning Jerusalem indicate that these are still the two toughest nuts to crack. This is what Arafat said in Ramallah a week ago:
"I would also like to talk about the refugee issue. We brought up the subject at the Camp David talks and I emphasized that something should be done immediately about the refugees in Lebanon because of the difficult conditions they live in. In addition, there is the issue of those who were uprooted, which is being addressed by a four-part, Egyptian-Jordanian-Israeli-Palestinian committee, which is discussing those who were uprooted in 1967. The matter of those who were uprooted has been settled. The matter that remains to be decided is that of the 1948 refugees. This issue was presented at Camp David. This is our objective. The Samaritan Jews live like Palestinians alongside us and in New York, Jews live like Neturei Karta. I am not saying that we are opposed to the peace agreement we reached (in Oslo). We are proud of this peace. We see this peace as our strategic choice. We are proud of this agreement of the peace of the brave which we reached with our late partner, Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered by radical elements in Israel, who also took part in the Ze'evi killing - and I have proof of that."
Military intelligence gave this assessment of the speech: Arafat is expressing an outlook that rejects Israel's historic and moral right to exist; he views Israel as part of an imperialist plot. He is insisting on the right of return and considers it the key to turning the Jews into a religious minority; he sees the intifada as a necessary means to achieving his goals, in combination with political moves, and is therefore unwilling to halt it. "Bottom line, historically speaking, the Palestinian mission is to undermine Israel's character as a Jewish state," the report concludes. |
