Going Down the Dark Ladder

The Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr on Sunday saw Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat giving a rare televised address to his people across the occupied territories.

There was nothing unexpected, objectionable or even new in his remarks. He denounced terrorism and the killing of Israeli civilians and called for a comprehensive cease-fire with the Israelis.

He also accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of declaring war on the Palestinians and demanded an immediate end to attacks against them.

It was a grimly familiar sight. Much of Arafat’s career has been spent reciting words handed to him by a succession of Israeli and U.S. governments to prove his bona fides as a legitimate interlocutor.

In the 1980s, Arafat went hoarse repeating an American-provided formula about “renouncing all forms of terrorism.” The 1990s were pockmarked with repeated emendations of the Palestinian national charter to satisfy every new Israeli government. So now, in this decade, the old man spent his Eid jumping through the latest set of hoops placed before him.

The Israeli rhetoric about Arafat has become increasingly incoherent in recent weeks. One day, he is solely responsible for the conflict, the very incarnation of evil. The next day, he is declared “irrelevant.” The day after that, everything depends on his security forces suppressing Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a task Israel could never accomplish even with far more military power.

These are the same Palestinian security forces that Israel’s military has under restricted movement and constant attack. They are routinely bombed by jets or simply captured, disarmed and executed on the spot, as happened to two Palestinian police officers in Salfit on Dec. 14.

In one of the most telling recent ironies, the suicide bomb attacks that killed almost 30 Israelis in Haifa and Jerusalem were a direct response to Israel’s assassination of Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, a leading member of Hamas. Abu Hanoud had been serving a 12-year sentence in a Palestinian jail, only to escape when Israel bombed the jail in May in one of its attacks on Palestinian police positions.

Israel’s depressingly predictable response to Arafat’s Sunday speech was to assassinate yet another Hamas member, Yakoub Idkadak--which all but guarantees another round in the cycle of violence--and to kill a police officer and a 12-year-old boy.

The Sharon government came to power declaring that a military victory was possible and that sufficient force would compel the Palestinians to end their uprising and give up their dream of independence.

There is no reason to believe that Sharon wants the violence to end, except in terms of a Palestinian capitulation. Hence Israel’s continuous escalations and provocations and its self-contradictory stance regarding Arafat.

Both Sharon and Arafat’s cupboards are bare. Sharon has no way of ending the uprising, and all of his brutality has only escalated the conflict and vastly increased the insecurity of Israelis. Arafat, meanwhile, has no formula to turn the uprising into actual progress toward freedom from Israeli rule. He is quickly losing ground to extremists.

Probably the worst failure of leadership has come from the United States. Retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni’s diplomatic mission was a farce because he had no mandate whatever to pressure Israel to play its part in restoring calm. During his trip--which ended Saturday, when he was recalled to Washington for consultations--Zinni uttered not one public word about the occupation, settlements, checkpoints, death squads or Palestinian civilian deaths.

There seems to be a disconnect in U.S. policy toward Israel. When diplomacy and the national interest are ascendant, the U.S. recognizes its interest in ending the conflict, President Bush calls for the creation of a Palestinian state and Secretary of State Colin Powell declares that “the occupation must end.” Yet when domestic political considerations win out, as they have after the suicide bombings, nothing but complete identification with Israel is possible.

Rather than playing a constructive role, the Bush administration has blocked efforts by the international community to help curb the violence. On Saturday, the U.S. vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that encouraged “all concerned to establish a monitoring mechanism” and condemned all terrorist acts, executions without trial, excessive use of force and the destruction of property.

Even an international intervention as limited as “a monitoring mechanism” apparently would interfere with Israel’s activities, which are aimed at breaking the will of Palestinians. As the slaughter proceeds, Washington pours fuel on the fire by funding, arming and supporting one side and preventing even the most tentative international action to douse the flames.

Sharon and Hamas both seem determined to continue to escalate the conflict at every turn, each clinging to the illusion that time is on their side and victory is nigh. Arafat and the U.S. are either unwilling or unable to take the steps necessary to break the cycle.

A happy new year seems quite out of the question.

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Hussein Ibish is communications director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.