Arafat: Yes wasn’t good enough

The considerable outrage being expressed by the uninformed on the
daily talk shows is getting plenty of attention. Everyone, it seems,
feels that the Palestinians are the injured party in the current
explosion of violence.

For those blinded by the current wave of misplaced political
correctness, it would be hard to imagine a scenario in which
Palestinians might seek protection in an Israeli police station and be
turned over to a waiting Jewish mob to be brutally beaten to death. Yet,
in the Ramallah situation, two Israelis did exactly that — they sought
protection and refuge from the Palestinian police. Instead of
protection, the police looked the other way as the mob seized the two
Israeli reservists, stabbed them repeatedly and threw at least one of
the soldiers out a second floor window into the arms of the waiting mob.

The scenes were horrific, yet in some people’s minds, justified,
since the plight of the Palestinians is “hopeless” — victims of Israeli
oppression — economically, politically and socially. What nobody seems
to understand is that the Palestinian people have their own government
to blame.

Yasser Arafat and his cronies live in fine villas, drive expensive
German automobiles, wear Armani suits to the various summit meetings,
and wax eloquently about the plight of their oppressed constituency at
Israeli hands. It is quite a contrast to the image projected by the
Israeli negotiating teams who arrive in four-door Chevys wearing suits
with shiny elbows and fraying shirt collars. And none of the Israeli
leaders live in Mediterranean villas. Who’s the oppressor here?

Two days after the murder of the two Israeli soldiers at the hands of
a blood-crazed mob, Palestinian state TV broadcast the comments of a
Muslim cleric. The cleric exhorted his flock to “kill the Jews and to
kill the Americans, wherever they may be found.” This is the true nature
of the Israeli peace partnership as envisioned by Yasser Arafat. Again,
the question: who is the oppressor, here?

Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship do not share the hopeless
condition of their brothers living under the tender mercies of the
Arafat government. Indeed, life for an Israeli Arab is so much better
than for their Palestinian counterparts that a majority of Arabs in a
recent poll indicated that, given the choice between living under an
Arab administration or under Israeli rule, they would prefer the Israeli
brand of “oppression.”

The Arab position appears to be that it’s all Israel’s fault because
they are using bullets to respond to rocks. But nobody, not even the
most articulate apologists for the Arab side, has any reasonable
alternative to suggest. Should the Israelis throw rocks back? Or maybe
they should just go home? Yasser Arafat, at the summit on Monday,
insisted the Israelis withdraw first, and then the violence would stop.
Who in their right mind is going to believe that, given the number of
broken promises charged to his account in just the last three weeks?

Any argument that advances the case that the Israelis are to blame
for the violence in the Middle East ignores the salient truth that it is
the Palestinians who are behind the unrest — not the Israelis. If the
Palestinians stopped throwing rocks, the IDF would go home. Simple. The
PA claims it has legitimate reasons for the violence. Fine. Then why
deny that they are the authors of the violence in the first place? Ehud
Barak offered a settlement more generous than anybody ever expected. He
offered them all that they demanded, including the division of
Jerusalem. His offer was so generous that, had it been accepted, it is
unlikely Barak could have survived politically anyway. But still it was
rejected out of hand. Yasser Arafat is a man who can’t take yes for an
answer.

Anybody with one eye and half a brain can see that the moment the
rocks stop flying, so will the bullets. Yet, in order to accept the
“oppressor” argument, one must pretend that the violence just “happened”
and that it is Israel who is keeping it alive by shooting the rioting
Palestinians. Just what do you think would happen if the Palestinians
stopped rioting? Does anybody seriously believe that the Israelis would
just keep shooting them without provocation? The media would have you
believe that the Israelis are in control of the violence and that they
should stop. How does one quell a riot by ignoring it? And how does one
not quell a riot?

The situation remains in the hands of the only one who could have
ended the violence — Yasser Arafat. Sadly, his desperate, last-ditch
effort to create an image of himself and his government as victims of an
oppressive Israeli government ended as quickly as the lives of those
unfortunate Israeli soldiers. He’s created a bloodlust among his people
that even he can no longer control. In 1993, Yitzhak Rabin was reluctant
to shake Arafat’s bloodstained hand, but did so out of love for Israel
and a desire for peace. It will be hard to find an Israeli leader —
even Ehud Barak, who will make that same mistake again.