"Arafat is guilty of everything here." Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon declared on television Monday night. "Arafat has made his
strategic choices: a strategy of terrorism." In sync with these fierce
words, Israeli forces launched attacks close to the Palestinian leader's
house and destroyed his helicopters, an onslaught that the U.S. government
conspicuously failed to condemn.
So, in the wake of the last suicide bomb attacks launched by
Hamas, the sky is now the limit for Israeli reprisals: the killing of
Arafat, and, not so far down the road, possible forced expulsion of tens of
thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank. In other words, the
substitution of untrammeled military repression by Israel's forces and a
deaf ear from the United States to all Palestinian calls for fair dealing.
Write "FINIS" to all efforts across the past 35 years to secure a just
settlement in Israel and some measure of satisfaction for Palestinian
aspirations.
But, to be honest about it, is that not exactly what Israelis
like Ariel Sharon have wanted all along? Can anyone claim with a straight
face that Sharon and those like him actually want a just peace that would
see an end to Israeli settlements on the West Bank, the rise of a
Palestinian state in any guise other than pathetic little Bantustans ringed
by Israel's security forces?
There are those in Israel who outlined clearly a couple of weeks
ago Sharon's plan to force matters exactly along the lines they have now
taken.
Alex Fishman is the main commentator on security matters for
Israel's largest mass circulation paper, Yediot Achronot, a publication with
right-of-center politics. Fishman is known for his excellent contacts in the
military. On Sunday, Nov. 25, Fishman issued a prediction based on the
recent assassination on Nov. 23 by Israel's security services of the Hamas
leader, Mahmud Abu Hunud. It was featured in a box on the newspaper's front
page.
It began, "We again find ourselves preparing with dread for a
new mass terrorist attack within the Green Line (Israel's pre-'67 border)."
Since Fishman was entirely accurate in this regard, we should mark closely
what he wrote next. "Whoever gave a green light to this act of liquidation
knew full well that he is thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman's
agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority; under that agreement,
Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green
Line, of the kind perpetrated at the Dolphinarium (discotheque in
Tel-Aviv)."
Fishman stated flatly that such an agreement did exist, even if
neither the Palestinian Authority nor Hamas would admit it in public. "It is
a fact," he continued, "that, while the security services did accumulate
repeated warnings of planned Hamas terrorist attacks within the Green Line,
these did not materialize. That cannot be attributed solely to the Shabak's
impressive success in intercepting the suicide bombers and their
controllers. Rather, the respective leaderships of the Palestinian Authority
and Hamas came to the understanding that it would be better not to play into
Israel's hands by mass attacks on its population centers."
In other words, Arafat had managed to convince Hamas to curb its
suicide bombers. This understanding was shattered by the assassination of
Abu Hunud. "Whoever decided upon the liquidation of Abu Hunud," Fishman
continued, "knew in advance that that would be the price. The subject was
extensively discussed both by Israel's military echelon and its political
one, before it was decided to carry out the liquidation. Now, the security
bodies assume that Hamas will embark on a concerted effort to carry out
suicide bombings, and preparations are made accordingly."
Ever since Sept. 11, Israel's leaders followed with deep
trepidation the building of the coalition against the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The months of studious indifference displayed by the Bush administration
towards the Middle East's crises suddenly gave way to President Bush's
abrupt, post-Sept. 11 statement that he had always nourished the dream of a
Palestinian state.
Consequently, the prime task of the Israeli government and of
its supporters here has been to turn back any serious pressure for
accommodation with even the most modest of Palestinian demands. In parallel,
the faction mustered around Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and
Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle has been to push for the United
States to reopen direct hostilities with Iraq and settle accounts with
Saddam Hussein, once and for all.
The Wolfowitz-Perle group knows perfectly well that any serious
new confrontation with Saddam Hussein would probably be a prolonged and
bloody affair. There is no Northern Alliance ready and eager for U.S.
intervention in Iraq. The Shia in the south remember well what happened in
1991 when they rose against Saddam and the United States stood by while
Saddam methodically slaughtered them. The Kurds know that a post-Saddam
regime might move against them, with similar U.S. indifference. If the
United States acted as supervisor and guarantor for an invasion by Ahmed
Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, the military and diplomatic
consequences would be both bloody and far-reaching.
It's clear that the Wolfowitz-Perle group are equable in the
face of such uncertainties, since whatever the ghastly consequences for
ordinary people in Iraq, the one outcome that would be certain is that
Israel would be resoundingly confirmed in its status as the United States's
prime ally and supporter in the region, even as the post-Sept. 11 coalition
with Islamic countries falls apart. Small wonder they rapturously echo
Sharon's denunciations of Arafat as a man of terror, even though they, being
smart people, probably don't need Alex Fishman to explain how the real game
is actually being played.
These are the stakes. They're far larger than the present
tragi-comic efforts to assemble a coalition to run Afghanistan, and there
isn't much sign thus far that President Bush understands that comic-book
advisories such as "You're for us or against us" do not, in this situation,
really apply.
Alexander Cockburn is coeditor with Jeffrey St Clair of the
muckraking newsletter CounterPunch. To find out more about Alexander
Cockburn and read features by other columnists and cartoonists, visit the
Creators Syndicate Web page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2001 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
