I'm not advocating it [though if I thought about it for a while I might] but I don't understand why the Israeli government doesn't just kill Arafat.
To satisfy the misguided policy needs of the US, mostly. There is a minority who wants to kill Arafat, but a majority would simply deport him and his security forces too. But the residue of Oslo keeps some legitimacy clinging to Arafat, plus his remaining power, plus the fact that he's made sure he will be succeeded by chaos, which scares a number of people, esp. in the US State Dept. I think that it's been an incredible declaration of weakness on Israel's part not to kill or deport Arafat & that Sharon has only done it to keep US favor.
The trouble is, the Pals have everyone trained not to expect them to keep any commitments - they're "weak", they're "desperate", they can't face a civil war, etc. And of course they always have a long list of grievances gladly echoed by their amen corner in Europe. This time the Roadmap wasn't very favorable to their grievances, so they listed a bunch that weren't on the Roadmap and claimed that they were. The BBC and other European papers (some American papers too) dutifully reported that the Israelis were violating the Roadmap, and didn't mention that the Pals were failing to do Step 1 that was on the Roadmap - clamp down on Hamas.
So we just saw a hudna with 200 attempted terror attacks instead of 400 attempted terror attacks in the same period before the hudna. Of course, by now the Pals get a free pass on failed attempts. Only the 'successes' change the rules. Hamas even announced that the hudna was still on after the bus bombing. You can't say they're not creative! But when Israel iced one of their leaders, the hudna went off.
This conflict is marked by rounds of violence interspersed by artifically imposed truces. At each round of violence, the Israelis are allowed just a little more leeway. It's like watching two tectonic plates grind against each other. For a long time nothing happens, then there is some inconclusive pressure, then one day there's an earthquake and everything is in a slightly different place. |
