Arafat Locked Between Two Gangs

Zuheir Kseibati     Al-Hayat     2003/09/16

When the Security Council warned Israel of imposing sanctions if it carries out its threat to ban President Arafat from the Palestinian territories, Israel's response was to offer another option: to execute the Palestinian President. As for the Arab League, its reaction was to hold an extraordinary session for the states' representatives! This is the difference between Israel and the Arabs, put simply: a revelry that does not recognize international laws and occupational responsibilities, that blackmails the world by making itself appear in the role of the "victim," and follows the path of the Americans after the September 11 attacks, and even teaches them the method of eradication as the last remedy… whereby all is allowed.   

The U.S. advice to avoid expelling or killing Arafat remains just an advice, and not a binding request made to the ally Ariel Sharon, as long as he is engaged in the "war on terror."

What Washington fears is a burst of anger in the region, at a time when it refuses to speed up its withdrawal from Iraq, and where killing is allowed, just as it is in the Palestinian territories.

As for the Arab situation, it no longer comes as a shock or a surprise, every time the region faces an event of the importance of Israel's preparations for eliminating the "Arafat obstacle": no reaction as far as action, nor does the concerned party expect anything more than just talk, communiqués and expressions of sorrow from the compatriots.

A simple paradox is that the Arab foreign ministers in Cairo recently met the U.S. 'demand' to give the Iraqi seat to the transitional ruling council, but they failed to see in the Israeli threats to Arafat enough reason for an extraordinary session, at least to discuss the way to handle the storm coming from Palestine… and organize a new lamentation for the common Arab action. 

Saeb Erakat summed up Israel's plan to turn the page on Arafat in a very simple manner, when he said that killing him would mean killing the Palestinian Authority, and have the Palestinians handle militias assassinating the moderate leaders. The legitimate elected president is all that is left of the Oslo Accords, and Sharon chose the tenth commemoration of the White House lawn handshake to cross a red line, which is rumored to have been drawn by the Bush administration in the beginning of the Israeli war to break the Intifada. This red line is to refrain from threatening Arafat's life. But few remember that Bush himself gave the green light in June 2002 to eliminate the Palestinian President as far as his role and symbol, when he spoke of "new leaders for the Palestinian people." Few remember that it was then that the Jewish state started to plan on kidnapping Arafat from his headquarters in Ramallah and expelling him far from Palestine.

With the resignation of the Abbas government, the Israeli Prime Minister is now convinced that the policy of besieging the leader is doomed to failure; regardless of how many opponents he has among the Palestinians themselves, these opponents don't disagree on his symbolic role in resisting all the plans to kill the Palestinian cause, despite all the massacres, assassinations, the U.S. conspiracy with Sharon, and Europe's falling into the trap of destroying the legitimacy of the resistance… and finally, the addictive incompetence of the region, which served to strengthen the U.S.-Israeli grip on the Palestinian territories. Isn't it unfair for the Palestinian people, that a country welcomes a minister from Sharon's government, while the Likudists gang chases the resistance leaders with helicopters hunts them down with missiles in the West Bank and Gaza? Or that an Arab official blames the Palestinian "terrorist" operations as if they were the reason for the gang's crimes, which have the blessing of Washington?

There are many differences between the Iraqi and the Palestinian situations. However, to Sharon, the ouster of Saddam Hussein by U.S. forces is the standard. There is no difference between one invasion and another, between Saddam and Arafat, and all that remains are just "lies." The weapons of mass destruction in Iraq = "terrorist" weapons in the hands of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and behind them that arrested leader in Ramallah who stepped out of oblivion a few days ago to revive the Israeli trouble. If it is foolish to question the ability of the Likudnik gang, allied with the neo-conservatives in Washington, to carry out another invasion and expulse Arafat, it is equally foolish to count on an Arab move, at a time when the greatest wisdom is to create claims designed to shun all commitments and relations. All that is coming is a wave of anger triggered by the kidnapping of the Palestinian President, and then the emergence of a "new leadership," as says Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who is perfectly aware of the Arab situation, as are the people of Gaza and the West Bank, who are awaiting the major massacre.