It’s Goodbye to Arafat, Farewell

For the first time since the outbreak of the intifada more than eight months ago, Yasser Arafat has called for an end to the violence--in Arabic, to his own people. Of course everyone understands that the suicide-bombers do not obey him. But the 18 Israelis killed just in the past month of May, before the Tel Aviv nightclub bombing, were all shot by Arafat’s salaried riflemen.

Arafat first promised to forswear violence when the Oslo agreement first took effect. He did not mean it. Time after time, his media incited riots or his riflemen opened fire, or both, whenever he was dissatisfied with the course of negotiations.

Most recently that happened not because of inadequate Israeli concessions, but the very opposite: The Al Aqsa intifada Arafat started in September was his answer to the offer of more than 95% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza. Most of his erstwhile supporters around the world urged him to accept the offer, and that would have meant the end of the only life he has ever known--as a world traveler pleading for his cause--and forced him to start governing his Palestinian state, something that evidently he cannot or will not do.

It is of course possible, though most unlikely, that Arafat means it this time.

Otherwise the killing of the Tel Aviv teenagers will mark the end of the last Israeli attempt to negotiate peace with Yasser Arafat. Just over three months ago, Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister of Israel to stop or at least drastically reduce the violence by any means necessary. He campaigned on his lifelong reputation for tactical brilliance in using force, not least against guerrillas and terrorists.

But as soon as he won election, Sharon formed a coalition government to pursue the peace process, appointing its leading advocate--Shimon Peres--as his foreign minister and another moderate, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer as his defense minister.

That unified the country. But it also prevent Sharon from using most of Israel’s military options. The coalition agreement ruled out reoccupying land given to Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, including even the village of Beit Jala, from which there is nightly shooting against the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo just across a ravine.

Also ruled out was anything more than occasional punitive strikes against Arafat’s power structure in the Gaza and West Bank--the headquarter offices, communication units, supply depots, barracks, and sometimes luxurious officers’ villas of Arafat’s security, police and militia forces.

The Sharon government merely continued the security measures already in place, ranging from the strict controls on Palestinian road traffic to the hunting down of key terrorist operatives, while leaving Palestinian “political” figures alone. And that applied even to the heads of Arafat’s security units that were actively participating in the shootings and bombings.

So long as casualty numbers continued to be very low, Israeli opinion accepted Sharon’s moderation. Even his proclamation of a unilateral cease-fire to allow time for the latest U.S. mediation effort was accepted for a while.

What followed, however, was a mounting toll of killings: Two more Israelis were shot and killed on the day before the Tel Aviv bomb, almost certainly by Arafat’s salaried gunmen. Sharon was increasingly criticized by his own Likud Party members, who demanded an end to the unilateral cease-fire.

Speaking about eight hours before the bomb in Tel Aviv exploded, Sharon replied to his critics by declaring that he was unmoved, that he would continue the cease-fire to give diplomacy one more chance: “I am responsible. It’s my responsibility. I know the dangers. It’s on my shoulders and nobody else’s.”

That was before. It will be different now. The unilateral cease-fire is over unless Arafat takes drastic action to round up the terrorist bombers and order his own men to stop shooting.

Sharon will now turn to his earlier talents to direct the most effective uses of force, rather than confining himself to the least provocative.

Israeli policy will not change in reaction to the suicide bomber who claimed the lives of innocent teenagers and maimed dozens of many more, some of them for life. But it would change because the recent violence has finally tipped the balance of debate on Arafat’s intentions.

Some Israeli leaders and experts continued to assert that Arafat wanted peace, although on terms that were impossible to fully satisfy. They also say that the vast majority of the Palestinian population does not participate in the violence, which is now exclusively carried out by Arafat’s salaried employees, tiny cells of Islamic fanatics and youngsters who limit themselves to ritual stone-throwing in a few places where the TV cameras await.

In other words, Arafat’s support is waning.

Unlike Israeli or Western government heads, he is not an elected leader who must satisfy the desire of his people for decent conditions of life. The sufferings of the Palestinians under occupation are of no greater concern to Arafat than those of the Iraqis are to Saddam Hussein. He is after his own personal victory.

As Arafat sees it, he toppled the last Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, by spurning his peace offer, and he now means to topple Sharon by spurning his unilateral cease-fire.

If Sharon accepts that analysis, it can lead to only one conclusion: to send Arafat on his travels, and await the emergence of Palestinian leaders who want peace.