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]]]]]]]]]]]] THE ANOINTING OF ARAFAT [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
Pressuring the Israelis to risk national existence (12/22/88)
By A.M. Rosenthal (New York Times 12/20/1988)
[Kindly uploaded by Freeman 07656GAED]
It is just beginning. The pressure will now increase for Israel to
risk its very existence.
The purpose will be to force Israelis to agree to the creation of a
new country that would have a deep political, religious and national
drive to expand over the years into all of Israel.
Few countries have been asked to do that -- risk nationhood by
carving out a piece of territory and handing it to an enemy without a
fight. Czechoslovakia was pressured into doing that in 1938. To
this day it has not regained its freedom. Not many nations return
from the graveyard of surrender.
The Reagen Administration prepared the way for the pressure to come
by its stunning turnaround on the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Only a few weeks ago, Secretary of State George Shultz denounced
Yasir Arafat as a terrorist not even fit to visit this country for a
speech to the U.N.
Suddenly Mr. Schultz anointed the P.L.O. as a negotiating partner,
after 13 years of American refusal to do so, making Mr. Arafat a vic-
torious international hero.
The decision to legitimize Mr. Arafat came after he read aloud an
American-prepared statement that differed little from what he had
said before about recognizing Israel and denouncing terrorism.
No further price was asked of Mr. Arafat. Like renouncing the
death-to-Israel convenant -- as Mr. Bush himself demanded in Septem-
ber. Or proving over a decent amount of time that he had actually
given up terrorism. Or, most important, acknowledging the right of a
Jewish homeland to exist in the Middle East, not simply the fact that
it was there.
The frantic haste with which Mr. Schultz accepted the parroted
words of Mr. Arafat and ordered P.L.O.-U.S. negotiations to start was
perhaps understandable. He did not have many weeks left to carve out
a niche in history. He certainly did that; his name and Mr. Arafat's
will now always be connected.
Just as astonishing was the speed and gentleness with which leaders
of American Jewish organizations announced that despite misgivings
about what he was doing they trusted Mr. Schultz. Privately, the
reason thay gave has little to do with trust of Mr. Schultz -- which
will not be of paramount importance after Jan. 20. It is that they
assume President-elect Bush is delighted not to face the P.L.O.
decision himself, and they are in no hurry to take him on.
Let's clear away some of the camouflage thrown up around the
decision.
The State Department says Mr. Arafat fulfilled American conditions
for dealing with him -- recognition of Israel's existence and
renouncing terrorism. But those conditions were supposed to be essen-
tial for even considering a U.S.-P.L.O. link and were meant to be
tested -- not a cooked-up maneuver for instant recognition.
The P.L.O. is already warning that its definition of terrorism
willl not coincide with Washington's or Israel's and says that is
just too bad.
More nonesense: Opposition to recognition of the P.L.O. means op-
position to peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian. Actually,
Mr. Reagen and Mr. Schultz did two things likely to delay peace.
They made the P.L.O. the sole Palestinian representative on the
West Bank with whom Israelis might have dealt. [Because of the con-
forming tribalism of the West Bank Palestinians, no other representa-
tive would have appeared, regardless. This tribalism is reinforced
-- by P.L.O. terrorism. BG.] And psychologically they have made the
concept of another Palestinian state acceptable before talks even
start.
Until Mr. Arafat proclaimed the Palestinian state, the form of
government of any territory given up by the Israelis was assumed to
be one of the things that negotiations were supposed to be all about.
Should there be another Palestinian state? Or should any territory
given up by the Israelis be governed otherwise -- perhaps by West
Bank Palestinians as part of a union with Jordan, a largely Palestin-
ian state itself?
Will the men who run the P.L.O. and have been fighting all their
adult lives for the destruction of Israel be satisfied with a sliver
of a state? Will Mr. Arafat be content to be mayor of Bethlehem?
No speculation is needed. A Kuwaiti newspaper reported that after
the American recognition, Abu Iyad, Mr. Arafat's deputy, said that
establishment of a Palestinian state on part of Palestinian land
would be a stage toward a Palestinian state on all of it.
The only question at a "peace conference" now would be how much the
P.L.O. gets, how fast. Then, how long before Israel became a
vulnerable sliver -- 10 years, 20?
Israel will not commit suicide. It is reasonable to hope that the
new President of the United States will decide that it is immoral for
one country to suggest that any other nation do so.
* * *
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