Personally, I think they should have killed Arafat, which would at least move the campaign forward into the post-Arafat era. As the old saying goes, when you strike at the king, you must kill him.
Two things come from that, almost as clearly as you and I typing these notes back and forth. First, a firestorm of support for the Palestinians rolls through the ME, threatening, severely, the govts of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia (this latter, perhaps less), and leading to a dramatic widening of tensions, conflict, etc. We get much closer to Johnny Apple's worry about a repitition of 1914.
Second, the subsequent Palestinian leadership would be much more radical than Arafat's present group. No negotiations, no nothing. My own fear is that the bad we see now would be dwarfed by the bad we would see then.
There is no security for Israel down that road. |
