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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (18802)	2/13/2002 10:17:49 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

Looks like neither Jibril Rajoub nor Sari Nusseibeh will be quitting Arafat's government just yet. But cracks are coming to the surface. Of course, the Europeans are rushing in as always to provide their "help". There a good assesment of their latest "help" in Barry Rubin's column in the Jerusalem Post: ...consider the new European peace plan unveiled by the European Union last week. It's a simple idea that calls for Palestinian elections followed by the creation of an independent Palestinian state. At that point, the new country - unconstrained by anything whatsoever and buoyed by international recognition - is supposed to make a peace agreement with Israel. Having been handed all the territory already, is Arafat then going to rush to drop his demand for a Palestinian right of return to Israel and eagerly declare an end to the conflict? Certainly this European plan is not going to teach Arafat and his colleagues the true importance of moderation and their need for a compromise peace. It is also unlikely to make them eager and ready to end violence, or change their current strategy. This type of approach is equally not going to make Israel view the Europeans as a useful participant in the political process and a reliable mediator. It is hard to believe that such a harebrained scheme, so ignorant of experience, could be hatched by political leaders and accepted by democratic Europe, which also - with some honorable exceptions - advocates a soft line on Iran and Iraq. Appeasement is no longer an adequate definition of this policy. We will have to start using the word super-appeasement. What is particularly disgusting about the European plan is that it is precisely what Arafat has been aiming for during his 18-month terror war on Israel, a war which has cost 1,000 people their lives. His idea was to provoke enough disorder and bloodshed to get Europe to offer him everything he wants on a silver platter. Now it has happened, giving him an incentive to keep fighting. The real irrationality and irresponsibility lies in ignoring the threat from Iran and Iraq, the Palestinian leadership's inability or unwillingness to make real peace, and the failure of Saudi Arabia and Egypt to play a constructive regional role. jpost.com