The Terrorism Loophole
Yasser Arafat, terrorist extraordinaire, pays no price for his transgressions. In fact, his tactics have been quite successful.
by Fred Barnes
03/20/2002 12:00:00 AM
Fred Barnes, executive editor
IMAGINE if Yasser Arafat, who is no slouch at terrorism, were treated the same as Osama bin Laden, the world's foremost terrorist at the moment. Arafat would have fled Palestinian territory and would be on the run, hunted by a coalition of nations bent on apprehending him dead or alive. Negotiations, much less a truce, between him and any nation in the coalition, including Israel, would be unthinkable. Neither leaders of coalition countries nor their representatives would consider meeting with him, even fleetingly. And he wouldn't be headed to a summit of his allies later this month. In short, Arafat would be an international pariah.
Yes, I know, the situations aren't exactly the same. Arafat didn't organize terrorist attacks on innocent Americans or at United States embassies abroad, as bin Laden did. Nor has he declared a jihad against all Americans. But for years now, Arafat has been directing or facilitating terrorism against women and children in a democratic country, Israel. He's allied himself with groups whose goal is the extermination of Israel. He's responded to generous terms for a peace settlement with Israel with still more terrorism. He's rewarded and honored suicide bombers who've killed Israeli non-combatants. He's reneged on agreements and broken promises and lied. Yet the world treats him like a legitimate national leader who, while sometimes misbehaving, is not a loathsome outcast.
And thus we get a measure of Arafat's triumph in the latest violent clash with Israel. Only weeks ago--particularly after a ship en route to Arafat subordinates with 50 tons of sophisticated weapons was captured--Arafat was seen as unlikely to hold on as Palestinian leader. He'd violated the Oslo Accords for the umpteenth time, only this time egregiously. He was regarded as unwilling or unable to quash terrorist attacks on Israel by Palestinians. He was given an ultimatum for reviving talks with Israel: a week without violence against Israelis and the arrest of terrorists known to have planned or carried out attacks on Israel. Arafat met neither condition.
Where has he wound up? Better off. He's not about to lose his job as head of the Palestinian Authority. He's gotten his way in precipitating American intervention and in prompting U.S. officials to talk about Israel and the Palestinians in roughly equivalent moral terms. He's been visited by Gen. Anthony Zinni, the special representative of Secretary of State Colin Powell, and will be again and again. Vice President Dick Cheney has promised to come see him if the newly reached truce holds. And he'll surely be heroically received at the Arab summit on March 29.
The Israelis bear part of the blame for this turn of events favoring Arafat, but only a tiny part. There was a moment last fall after the September 11 terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had a green light from the Bush administration to act boldly against Arafat. He could have routed terrorist organizations from the West Bank and Gaza, destroyed the Palestinian Authority and its infrastructure, and dispatched Arafat and his cronies into exile. Sharon settled for military half-measures, fearing his coalition government would collapse if he went too far. He didn't step up retaliation for Palestinian terrorism until the eve of Cheney's trip to the Middle East. This left the Bush administration with no option other than intervening to stop the warfare and bloodshed from escalating.
The result is that Arafat has paid no price for his sins. And the truth is he's actually gotten far more brazen, drifting from occasional terrorism into bin Ladenism. It's estimated that roughly half the terrorist attacks on Israel in recent months have been carried out by Arafat's own political faction. Men known to be his close associates have openly declared their involvement in terrorism against Israel. And of course there has been no counter-terrorism campaign waged by Arafat, despite his promises to wage one.
The lesson for Arafat? In the end, terrorism works. The civilized world will not come down on him as it has on bin Laden, the al Qaeda terrorist organization, and the Taliban. Arafat may be ostracized for a while, but not forever. No coalition will be organized to hunt him down. Rather, when things get bad enough, high-level mediators will beat a path to his door to negotiate. And instead of being dismissed as a pariah, he'll be treated as indispensable to peace in the Middle East. It's a sad story for everyone but Arafat--sad but true.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
theweeklystandard.com |
