Aug. 2, 2004 21:30 The Region: Father of failure By BARRY RUBIN
DR. ARAFAT. The terror chieftain was granted a honorary doctorate by al-Quds University. Photo: AP
The world seems to be discovering the basic facts about the Palestinian movement's leadership and especially regarding Yasser Arafat. It is increasingly obvious that he is impossible to deal with diplomatically, uninterested in ending the violence or making the peace, and repressive as well as incompetent in leading his own people.
Nevertheless, despite this factor as revealed by growing turmoil in Gaza, battles among Palestinian factions, and protests about Arafat's leadership, four basic principles have been largely overlooked.
The problem is not merely Arafat himself but the extremist ideology, distortion of reality, maximal goals, rationale for terrorism, and refusal to accept a real peace that both he and his colleagues represent.
These factors blocking the chance for a just and lasting peace did not originate a few weeks ago when Palestinians started complaining more openly about their own leaders but go back many decades. Indeed, they are the reasons why this conflict did not end 30 years ago. And the central issues have been, as they are today, the refusal to accept Israel's existence, the glorification of hatred and terrorism, and the rejection of compromise on the Palestinian and Arab side.
Arafat has done the most to set the agenda in which Palestinian politicians, ideologues, and gunmen prefer trying to destroy Israel than to build a stable, peaceful, and productive state of their own.
Finally, it is vital to see the connection between the nature of the Palestinian leadership and the bitter realities that have shaped Israeli policies in response. It is harder to make a deal with someone who wants to destroy you than with someone who wants to reach a mutually beneficial agreement. It is far more difficult to reach an understanding with someone who preaches hatred as the basis of his society than with someone who is eager for conciliation once reasonable demands be met.
Doesn't it make sense that Israel does not want to make more concessions, take more risks, and trust its future to such an enemy? Isn't it clear that Israel must use force to stop terrorism since Palestinian leaders encourage, protect, and pay for it?
Under these circumstances isn't a security fence a necessity, an act of legitimate self-defense? Such responses are not the choice of a demonized Israel or satanized Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, but a rational and appropriate response to the violence and anarchy fostered by Arafat.
To recognize that the leader accepted (up to now) by Palestinians has been a corrupt autocrat who uses terrorism and incitement while rejecting peace means the world should support Israel's actions in defending itself. How then could the EU's members vote unanimously in the UN to condemn Israel's security fence? (Answer: by endorsing an International Court of Justice decision that Israel had no right of self-defense against terrorists.) Implicit in the condemnation of Arafat – especially now that his victims are visibly Palestinians – the world also must understand what it requires to defend oneself against Arafat and a movement and doctrine he has led and shaped, most of which continues to be loyal to him.
Consider only one of a thousand points of evidence revealing the kind of person we are dealing with here. Nabil Amr, a veteran Fatah activist, became a dissident, writing an open letter to Arafat last year accusing him of throwing away the chance for a peaceful solution and an independent Palestinian state. A few weeks later, shots were fired at Amr's house. Recently, Amr was shot and his leg has to be amputated.
Arafat originally declared – as he always does in such circumstances – that this crime would be investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice. Now he has canceled the investigation and accusing Israel of responsibility for the shooting, when obviously it was carried out by his own men.
After four years of totally unnecessary violence and 40 years of Arafat, the world seems to be getting the idea of what is actually going on. The New York Times and Washington Post both had Arafat-must-go editorials, though they were not so keen on the idea when the US government made this its policy two years ago.
As for the Arab media, there have never been so many open denunciations of Arafat, including calls for his resignation and changes in the Palestinian leadership. Some places in Europe and the European Union bureaucracy (and of course that part of the Israeli Left for whom wishful thinking is their religion) remain the last bastions of believers that Arafat is a man of peace.
Beyond bashing Arafat as an individual, however, it would be good to think about the political and strategic implications for those who are next-door neighbors of such a leader, system and world view as the one he created, both for Palestinians and the entire Arab world, and which hundreds of thousands of his people fervently embrace.
The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Centerand co-author of Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography and the forthcoming Hating America: A History (Oxford University Press).
