CAFI Newsletter #58 - ARAFAT'S MOMENT OF TRUTH ?

[cafi-list@christianactionforisrael.org]

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* CHRISTIAN ACTION FOR ISRAEL NEWSLETTER  #58 *
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Wednesday, December 4, 2001

SPECIAL ISSUE :  ARAFAT'S MOMENT OF TRUTH ?

  1.    A MOMENT FOR TRUTH
  2.    'OR ELSE' THE TWO WORDS ARAFAT MUST HEAR FROM AMERICA.
  3.    WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE U.S. MIDEAST POLICY?
  4.    THE GREEN LIGHT
  5.    QUOTES TO NOTE
  6.    HIGHLIGHT ARTICLES

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    1.    A MOMENT FOR TRUTH

by Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

In the wake of three murderous attacks on Israeli
civilians last weekend, Secretary of State Colin
Powell was moved to declare that "It is a moment
of truth, Mr. Arafat." It would be more accurate to
describe this as a moment for truth.

There really is no choice. It is not enough that the
death and destruction meted out by suicide
bombers intent on killing as many Jews - and, in
particular, young Israelis - as possible has caused
Secretary Powell and, his boss, President Bush to
call on the Palestinian Authority's Yasser Arafat for
a crackdown on the people surrounding and allied
with him who are responsible for this terror.
Similar demands in the past have never received a
serious and sustained response. The absence of any
penalties for such behavior has only served to
reinforce the Arabs' contemptuous disregard of
American injunctions to act.

Neither would it be sufficient if the Palestinians'
latest bloodletting in Israel had the effect of
granting a reprieve - especially if it is but a
temporary one - for the Jewish state from the
recently intensifying American pressure for more
Israeli territorial and other concessions. To be sure,
President Bush deserves credit for exercising
restraint during Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit
to the White House on Sunday.

Under the circumstances, however, Mr. Bush had
no choice but to eschew Secretary Powell's
campaign to euchre Sharon into abandoning his
precondition that there be at least seven days
without violence before committing to a renewed
cease-fire with the Palestinians. In the same way,
the president should dispense with any further
loose talk about a Palestinian state and official
declarations that Israel should facilitate its early
creation.

Necessary as these steps are, they are no longer
sufficient. Now we need the whole truth and
nothing but the truth. These are some of the harsh
realities that can no longer be ignored, that need
now to be publicly acknowledged and made the
basis of future Mideast policy by the Bush
administration.

The so-called Middle East "peace process," begun
with secret Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Oslo,
has materially contributed to the present,
catastrophic situation. Successive concessions made
in the name of advancing the "peace process" by
both Labor- and Likud-led governments of Israel
have not appeased demands for further
concessions, only whetted Arab appetites for more.

Thanks especially to the decision taken at Oslo to
allow Arafat to return to the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, to create what amounts to a proto-state there
and to arm its tens of thousands of "police" with
automatic weapons (and, covertly, with heavier
armaments), Israel has made itself vastly less secure
than it was prior to 1992. Converting the
Palestinian Authority into a sovereign state, with
internationally recognized borders, would do
nothing to prevent suicide bombers from finding
safe-haven and launching attacks from its lands -
just add enormously to Israel's costs in contending
with that threat.

The folks who brought us the Oslo "peace process"
and its progeny have been thoroughly discredited
by their handiwork. The last people President Bush
and Ariel Sharon should be taking advice from in
the present crisis are the likes of Israeli Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres, State Department Policy
Planning Staff Director Richard Haass, Arabists in
the Bush administration who are holdovers from
the Clinton era and New York Times columnist
Thomas Friedman. Britain turned to new
leadership after the appeasers got it into World
War II. President Bush must do the same - not
allow their contemporary counterparts to
compound the danger they have helped to inflict
on American interests in the Middle East and her
most important ally in that region, Israel.

Yasser Arafat remains committed to the destruction
of the state of Israel. This is evident in his speeches
to his people in Arabic and the symbols
(particularly the maps) he uses to describe his goals.
He can no more be expected to end attacks on
Israel by people who share his objectives than he
can be relied upon to create a state of "Palestine"
that will live, as President Bush put it recently,
"side-by-side with Israel in peace and security."

Arming some of Israel's neighbors to the teeth -
notably, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, whose true colors
are evident in the fact that their
government-controlled media are allowed
incessantly to broadcast venomous denunciations
of Israel - is an inducement to renewed hostilities
with the Jewish state, not conducive to a genuine
and durable peace. The pending sale of lethal, land
attack-capable Harpoon II missiles to Egypt is a
case in point.

Of course, it will appear to be easier not to
acknowledge these realities or other unpleasant
truths. Too many people - including past and
present senior U.S. officials - have much invested in
the falsehoods that vest legitimacy in Arafat and
his ilk and the "peace process" that has made the
latter a far more dangerous threat to Israel.

Still, those murdered in Jerusalem and Haifa over
the weekend will not have died in vain - and may
even have spared many others from meeting their
fate - if the terrorists who killed them really have
compelled a moment for truth, one that gives rise to
U.S. Middle East policies rooted in the hard facts as
they are, not political expediency or wishful
thinking.

© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
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     2.    'OR ELSE' THE TWO WORDS ARAFAT MUST HEAR FROM AMERICA.

BY DAVID MAKOVSKY -  Wall Street Journal  -  December 4, 2001

After a burst of terror attacks this weekend in Israel,
Secretary of State Colin Powell said that he spoke with
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and declared that
"words aren't enough"--actions are required in arresting
terrorists connected to the tragedy and in preventing future
bombings.

But the countless U.S. declarations directed at Mr. Arafat
suffer from the same problem. They have been mostly empty words,
and they have had little effect. What has been missing in all
the years of American statements is a sentence beginning with
two simple words: "Or else."

After Mr. Arafat released dozens of terrorists from jails a
little over a year ago--the start of the current round of
killings--he assured the Clinton administration that the
violence would halt if only the U.S. would back an international
commission to explore the Palestinian problem.

A commission was formed, led by former Senate Majority Leader
George Mitchell, but the violence did not stop. Mr. Mitchell
then issued a report calling for an "unconditional cessation of
violence," but the violence did not stop. CIA Director George Tenet
subsequently secured a written commitment for a halt to killings;
nothing happened. Now, the Bush administration has dispatched
retired general Anthony Zinni to enforce Tenet, which was to
enforce Mitchell, which was a fig leaf for Mr. Arafat to end the
violence in the first place. There is still no action. If the
situation were not so tragic, it would be farcical.

International klieg lights are currently focused on Mr. Arafat's
actions. However, the Palestinian Authority leader knows from
past experience that the focus will soon shift to other
international crises. And so he operates under a "Casablanca"
mentality, arresting "the usual suspects" and then waiting
until the cameras go elsewhere.

There are good reasons for an American "or else." An ultimatum
to Mr. Arafat is now necessary as perhaps the only chance of
averting a full Israeli military response, if not Mr. Arafat's
removal, as witnessed by the bombing of his helicopters in
Gaza yesterday. And if Mr. Arafat does want to act, it is
easier for him to publicly do so in response to the U.S.
than to Israel.

More important, there is logic to an American ultimatum. The
premise of U.S.-Palestinian relationship has been peacemaking.
But before the famed handshake on the south lawn of the White
House in 1993, Mr. Arafat was on the State Department's
terrorism list. Mr. Arafat views the bilateral relationship
as one of his greatest achievements, as it was decisive in
transforming the image of an archterrorist into a putative
peacemaker.

Yet this U.S.-Palestinian relationship was predicated on
Mr. Arafat being a peacemaker, and not someone who harbors
terrorists. The new Bush Doctrine means there are consequences
to actions; the president said, "If you harbor terrorists,
you are a terrorist." Until now, the U.S. hoped that the
bully pulpit combined with the promise of a peace deal would
be sufficient, and that there would be no need for ultimatums.
Now American credibility is on the line.

Mr. Arafat should not be allowed to make a mockery of
written and verbal antiterror commitments he made to Messrs.
Clinton, Bush, Powell, Mitchell and Tenet. And there is the
further issue of American complicity. Year in and year out,
successive administrations have dodged the question put
forward by congressional mandate about whether the Palestinian
Authority is living up to its peace commitments with Israel.

The last president to understand the importance of American
credibility was the elder George Bush. After the Palestine
Liberation Organization engaged in terrorism in 1990, just
months after the U.S. initiated a groundbreaking dialogue,
the first Bush administration cut ties. It is fair to say
that it was only because Washington was shut to him that
Mr. Arafat opened the door of Oslo and met with Israelis a
few years later.

An American "or else" is vital for a final reason. Long
accustomed to a lack of accountability and viewing himself
as indispensable to the U.S., Mr. Arafat has felt he never had
to choose between ties with the U.S. and ties with Hamas. The
U.S. trusted Mr. Arafat when he said he could co-opt Hamas.
Unless forced to choose, his approach is frequently to
prioritize domestic consensus over everything else. This
approach has been disastrous for him. The peace process has
collapsed, his economic infrastructure is in shambles, and
the violence has not enhanced his popularity but weakened it.
Now he needs to confront the radicals before it is too late.
A U.S. ultimatum will give him the rationale.

The ultimatum would demonstrate that the U.S.-Palestinian
relationship is at the edge of the abyss. Mr. Zinni would
report back to Mr. Bush within a very explicit time frame
whether Mr. Arafat has convincingly jailed terrorists, with
Americans monitoring Palestinian prisons to ensure compliance.
If not, Mr. Zinni will be recalled from the region and the
U.S.-Palestinian relationship will be suspended. United
Nations, European and Russian peace envoys are milling
around the Middle East, so Mr. Arafat will have ample means
to convey a message to the U.S. if and when he finally
reverses course.

The history of Mr. Arafat shows that he has believed that
no matter how devastating his miscalculations, the
international community will always extricate him. He needs
to be disabused of this notion. As Mr. Bush said famously
in the wake of Sept. 11:

"You are either with us or you are with the terrorists."

Mr. Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, is the author of "Making Peace with
the PLO: The Rabin Government's Road to the Oslo Accord"
(Westview Press/HarperCollins, 1996).
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     3.   WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE U.S. MIDEAST POLICY?

By George Melloan - December 4, 2001 - Wall Street Journal

When I shared my newspaper with the Irish priest sitting beside
me at the Los Angeles airport Saturday, he rewarded me with a
timely aphorism: "We read of man's achievements on the sports
page. We read of his failures on the front page."

Indeed. We were fated to see only hours later more sad evidence
of one particular failure, the continued unraveling of U.S.
policy in the Middle East. The facts were typically gory, with
10 Israelis killed and scores injured by suicide bombs at a
Jerusalem shopping mall Saturday night. Then a bus bombing in
Haifa on Sunday that killed at least 15 more. The attacks
brought the week's toll from bombings to at least 34 dead and
more than 200 wounded, not counting the naïve Arab youths who
are systematically persuaded by cynical terrorist leaders to
sacrifice their lives in return for whatever reward heaven
might have to offer.

The latest bombings followed what the State Department billed
as a major address at the University of Louisville on Mideast
foreign policy by Secretary Colin L. Powell. Anyone expecting
a fresh approach, however, heard pretty much the same old
thing, a call for an end to the violence and a promise that
yet another of a long string of U.S. emissaries would soon
be on his way to negotiate that hoped-for result. The new
fall guy is retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, an
able man but one mainly noted for his close contacts with
military leaders in the Muslim world. Gen. Zinni had just
arrived in Israel when the shopping mall attack occurred.

George W. Bush, before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon in Washington on Sunday, declared that "Chairman
Arafat and the Palestinian Authority must immediately find
and arrest those responsible for the hideous murders" and
must "act swiftly and decisively against the organizations
that support them." Yasser Arafat, president of the
Palestinian Authority, responded by condemning the attacks,
and declared a "state of emergency." Israel responded
yesterday by destroying Arafat's personal helicopter and
other PA military equipment.

This is the standard waltz of words. An American president
expresses outrage at the latest terrorist atrocity and
Arafat says, in effect, "I agree." The wily little
terrorist has played this game over and over again in a
lifetime of using terror to gain his political ends. He
uses terror because he doesn't have nuclear weapons or
vast armies, but also because it works. He has established
himself, without benefit of a free and legitimate election,
as the recognized leader of the Palestinian people. In this
guise, he has been their official representative in the Oslo
"peace" process. That has gained his Palestinian Liberation
Organization an armed presence in areas of the West Bank
and Gaza populated by Arabs. And it has made him a celebrity
in the fashionable salons of Paris, Washington and New York,
places he visits in high style, paying his big hotel bills
from a bank account supplied by Western governments.

But what has this "peace process" done for the U.S.?
It goes without saying that it hasn't bought peace.
Arafat went to war with Israel when he took over the PLO 33
years ago, and the war is still going strong. The State
Department has long insisted that acting as an "honest
broker" in the Middle East wins the U.S. friends in the
Arab world. If that is true, it is not very evident. Egypt
is willing to accept U.S. aid, modern weapons in
particular, but it is hardly a "friend." The Saudi royal
family likes to have the U.S. on hand to protect them from
a violent overthrow, but they can hardly be considered
friends either. Saddam Hussein is certainly no friend.
And the Arab fanatics who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11
were definitely not friends.

State also has argued that the Oslo land-for-peace process
would spare the Mideast from another war. But if what is
going on now in Israel and Arab territories isn't war it's
a close approximation. The security the Israelis were
promised as the outcome of the peace process is nowhere
in sight. The "peace" process was supposed to put the U.S.
on better terms with Europe, which tends to favor Arab
causes, and the United Nations, where pro-Arab Russia
wields a Security Council veto. But those "friends" have
been mainly responsible for springing Saddam Hussein from
his U.N. weapons inspections box and allowing him to sell oil
again to secretly fund new military and terrorist ventures.

Indeed, it seems as if Russian President Vladimir Putin has
so far had the best of his new friendship with George Bush.
He has won U.S. agreement on extending the U.N.'s
"oil-for-food" program to benefit Iraq. Mr. Bush has
conceded, in a sense, that Russia is fighting "terrorism"
in Chechnya. And the U.S. has offered little if any
resistance to Mr. Putin's restoring of a Russian presence
in Kabul, the Afghan capital the Soviets brutally occupied
in the 1980s, and beating up on little Georgia to teach it
not to take its declared independence too seriously.

In the Mideast, meanwhile, Israel faces a mounting death
toll as it fights a terrorism attack clearly launched by
Arafat. His apologists claim he himself can't control the
terrorists, but that is clearly nonsense. The Palestinian
Authority has an enormous police force and a network of spies.
Arafat knows who the terrorists are because, under whatever
name they choose to call themselves, they effectively work
for him.

The primary mistake of the Oslo process was to choose a
terrorist to represent the Arab side. This derives from a
peculiar State Department logic we have seen in play over
and over again that says that little dictators can be
co-opted and put to work to achieve "stability." That's a
very popular word at State. The fact that it is cynical,
consigning whole populations to the tender mercies of thugs,
is coupled with another sad fact: It usually makes matters
worse over time. When people in Washington say the State
Department is "dysfunctional" they usually mean that it is
underfunded. But the description could as easily be derived
from evidence that its permanent bureaucracy is afflicted
with tunnel vision.

The U.S. is itself now fighting a war on terrorism.
Terrorism continues to be practiced against a Mideast
democracy, Israel, with which the U.S. has had a
longstanding special relationship. The obvious conclusion
is that Arafat and his terrorist henchmen must be made
targets of the broader war.

The first step in that direction is an admission that U.S.
policy in the Mideast has been a colossal failure.

Copyright © 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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     4.   THE GREEN LIGHT

I wonder what it will take to make America and
the rest of the civilized world understand that the
Palestinian Authority does not seek peaceful
coexistence with Israel.

How about the series of suicide bombings over the
weekend that killed some 26 people? Or that PA
leader Yasser Arafat, when speaking to his people
in Arabic, condones violence against Israelis? Or
that the Palestinian schools teach their children to
hate Israel and to deny the existence of the Israeli
state? Or that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak offered the Palestinians an unconscionable
amount of Israel's real estate and Arafat still
rejected his offer (because he refused to recognize
the legitimacy of the Israeli state)? Or the extensive
list of other suicide bombings and other murders of
Israeli people that have occurred since the 1993
Oslo "peace" accords, where Arafat pledged to
renounce violence? Or the fact that under Arafat's
reign, no terrorist has served a substantial jail
sentence for acts of violence against Israelis?

On the other hand, why should the Palestinians
cease and desist from hostilities since their acts of
aggression have consistently resulted in territorial
gains or a greater receptiveness to them? Stated
another way, why should they behave when it's
more profitable for them not to?

Many on the left (here and abroad) argue that
Arafat's hostility is a direct result of Ariel Sharon
and the hardliners in his Likud Party having
acquired control. But one of the main reasons
Sharon was elected was the failure of the soft-line
Barak administration to bring peace to the region.

The truth is that peace is going to be unattainable
as long as the Palestinian authority is allowed to
pretend that it will peacefully co-exist with Israel.
Appeasement will no more work with Palestinian
terrorists than it does with the al-Qaida.

America, in its war on terrorism, certainly needs
the support of other governments inside and
outside the Muslim world. Western nations like
Britain are anxious to help us - both because they
are our long-term allies and they, too, are ongoing
terrorist targets. The Muslim and other nations in
closer proximity to Afghanistan have their own
reasons for supporting us to a greater or lesser
degree, or not at all.

The military assistance of Britain and the limited
logistical support of Pakistan have been very
important in our rapid and powerful response
against the Taliban and al-Qaida. But here's the
point: If all of these nations chose to sit on the
sidelines, we could go it alone. It would take longer,
it would be riskier and might result in greater loss
of American lives, but we could do it.

Israel, though, as fierce and determined as she is,
needs our support against the acts of terror against
her, or, at the very least, she deserves that we don't
pressure her not to defend herself.

The Bush administration issued a statement today
endorsing Israel's right to defend herself, but the
endorsement was not unequivocal. A spokesman
for Secretary of State Colin Powell cautioned that,
"it's important all parties consider the
repercussions" of their actions and how those
actions may impact on prospects for peace in the
region.

Israel, with some exceptions, has been quite
deferential to American wishes. I'll never forget the
forbearance she demonstrated when Saddam
Hussein, without provocation, launched numerous
Scud missiles at Israel during the Persian Gulf War
in an effort to ignite a large-scale holy war. But
how much forbearance from Israel do we have a
moral right to request?

How can we demand that the nations sponsoring
terrorist organizations targeting the United States
cough up the bad guys or face our wrath while
insisting that Israel turn the other cheek? The 26
people who were killed last weekend certainly
won't benefit from such restraint.

Mr. Netanyahu urges that America support Israel
in giving Chairman Arafat an ultimatum:
Dismantle your terrorist networks, or we will
dismantle your regime. When pressed, Netanyahu
refused to call for Arafat's assassination. Unlike
some reporters questioning him, I believe he was
being sincere. He's not after Arafat's assassination.
He knows that this isn't just about Arafat, but his
regime aiding and abetting terrorism.

Our State Department spokesman, when asked
whether we were giving Israel the green light to
counterattack, said, "This is not a game of green
light, red light."

No, it's not a game, but it's time for the Bush
administration to change the light from yellow to
green. It is not right to let Israel continue to twist in
the wind.

© 2001 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
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     5.   QUOTES TO NOTE

        "The only way to defend against terrorists is to go
         after the terrorists."

-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on NBC's "Meet the Press"

        "Israel does not start wars. This war of terror, as in
         the past, has been forced upon us. We know who has
         forced it upon us. We know who is guilty.
         We know who is responsible.."

--Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in his statement Monday night.
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     6.   FEATURE ARTICLES ON OUR SITE

A PLAN FOR ARAFAT
The idea behind Oslo was for Israel to "take a risk for peace"
 -- as though getting on a bus, visiting a pizzeria or disco,
and walking down a street are not risky enough for Israelis.
Israel would take a risk by yielding something tangible,
control of land, for something intangible, Arafat's promises
of peace. Israel did that.
The current war refutes the Oslo idea.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/dec01/plan_arafat.html

TERRORISM AND 'ARAFATISTAN'
It is quite clear the military strategy of Islamic Jihad and
Hamas is to kill as many Israelis as possible, and to bring
the same fear to Israeli population centres that the
terrorists claim exists in Palestinian cities. There remains,
however, a high degree of ignorance about the aims of these
groups, their motives and the background of their suicide
bombers.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/dec01/arafatistan.html
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