Arafat's Failure May Offer
Seeds of Hope
by Daniel Pipes
Los Angeles Times
May 6, 2002
Yasser Arafat's decision to place six Palestinians under the control
of American and British jailers in return for his personal release
from captivity is getting mixed reviews on the Palestinian "street."
But the Palestinian Authority's main mistake reaches deeper than
tactical missteps of this sort. Far more serious, it is pursuing a
failed strategy against Israel. Nor does it seem to realize the
damage it is doing to its goals. This strategic error eventually will
cost the Palestinians their fight against Israel.
The current round of fighting--what I call the Palestinian-Israeli
war - began in September 2000, four months after Arafat and his
colleagues witnessed how steady violence against Israeli troops in
Lebanon had demoralized the Israeli body politic and led to a
sudden and total evacuation of Israeli forces from Lebanon.
Impressed by what the Lebanese had achieved, Arafat began a
copycat effort aimed at destroying Israel by demoralizing its
population, causing the Jews to flee the country, plead for terms
and eventually capitulate.
This strategy initially worked. On Oct. 7, 2000, the Israelis
retreated from Joseph's Tomb, a Jewish holy site in Nablus, after
their forces came under fire from a street rabble. On capturing the
site, Palestinians desecrated Hebrew texts. They felt
understandably exultant, for they had defeated the mighty Israel
Defense Forces.
Although it certainly looked like Israel was sliding into defeat, a
remarkable thing happened: a profound change in mood. Israelis
came to realize that they were fighting for their survival. Lebanon
was just a means to defend Israel and could be given up, but Israel
itself had to be fought for.
A people who just months before had insisted on ending the
conflict now accepted the need to fight on. A divided people
became united. A dispirited population became mobilized. They
overwhelmingly voted for a new and tougher government led by
Ariel Sharon.
Palestinians, however, did not see this change. Unaware of the
effect of their hammering away at Israelis, they kept up an assault
of suicide bombers and snipers. In a mood of exuberance, the
Palestinians barely noticed what damage they were doing to their
cause. The killing of Israel's tourism minister last October, for
example, caused Sharon to harden his position against Arafat and
not accept him as a negotiating partner.
Likewise, the "Passover massacre" - the March suicide murder of
29 Israelis as they celebrated the Jewish holiday - did not benefit
the Palestinians but led to the virtual dismantling of the
Palestinian Authority, the death of many of its combatants and the
arrest of thousands.
Although the Palestinians have not recognized that continued
violence against Israel is not working, their many steps backward
in recent weeks seem to have waked at least some of them to the
magnitude of their mistake.
I predict that this round of the Palestinian war on Israel, now 19
months long, will collapse fairly soon - probably well before the
end of this year. I also predict that the Palestinians will at that
time find themselves adrift, with a strategy proven wrong, an
economy near collapse and a sundered leadership.
Ironically, this time of darkness and misery, if understood
properly by a new Palestinian leadership and handled correctly by
the outside world, could have very positive implications.
Ultimately, only Palestinian acceptance of the existence of Israel
will resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. This means that if the
Palestinians can learn the right lesson from their failure, they will
give up on their half-century dream of eliminating Israel and
instead deploy their considerable talents at building a better life
for themselves. They will realize that liberating themselves from
their obsession with destroying Israel must precede any progress
on their own.
If they do, then this terrible moment will one day be seen as
having within it the seeds of a better future.
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