Shattered
rl — o
or— Appo
historian of the Palestine Lib-
eration Organization, called
non-violent guerrilla warfare.
"They should know that
they cannot function politi-
cally, or enjoy secure and nor-
mal personal lives, as long as
they engage in organizing ter-
rorism against Israel," he
said. "They would not know
if their businesses would be
dosed, if their property would
be confiscated, their homes
raided."
* Mr. Arafat could restrict
the flow of money, donated
by Palestinian exiles in the
West, for the Hamas youth
programs from which the
teenage suicide bombers
are recruited with promises
of instant ascent to the
joys of paradise. These pro-
grams, widespread through-
out the West Bank and
Gaza, are nominally sport-
ing and educational, but are
Foreign Aid
a transparent cover for
brainwashing.
Palestinian spokesmen
have protested that the Is-
raeli demands humiliate Mr.
Arafat before his own people.
They maintain that if he con-
fronted Hamas, which enjoys
the support of at least 20 per-
cent of the Palestinians, he
would invite a civil war.
But the Palestinian elec-
tions in January gave Mr.
Arafat and his Fatah organi-
zation an unprecedented le-
gitimacy. Mr. Arafat has the
authority— and the support
of the street, as a huge Pales-
tinian peace rally in Gaza on
Monday demonstrated.
And Hamas has shown in
the past that it has no more
taste than Mr. Arafat for a civ-
il war. Its leaders knew they
would be crushed. It seems
not all of them are seeking in-
stant martyrdom. ❑
If the Clinton administration really wants to help
Israel, it will lean on the Palestinians and Syrians.
JAMES D. BESSER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
ress reports about this week's
latest Hamas atrocities in
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv bela-
bored the obvious — the re-
newed terror campaign, a stab aimed
directly at the heart of the peace
process, poses an enormous and pos-
sibly impossible political challenge to
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres.
Almost overnight, Mr. Peres' strong
lead in the polls has evaporated; his
advocacy of open borders and a
warmer peace with the Palestinians
has left him vulnerable as the Israeli
electorate reacts with stunned rage.
But the relentless attacks on the
peace process also represent a moment
of truth for the Clinton administra-
tion, which will be called on to support
the tough choices being made in
Jerusalem.
Although the critical decisions about
the peace process will be made in
Jerusalem — and in Gaza City, where
Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat, too,
faces a moment of decision — there
are several things officials here can do
to make themselves useful during this
time of uncertainty.
1. Instead of increasingly mean-
ingless cheerleading for the peace
process, the administration needs
to start focusing more on Israeli
security.
"The administration continues to
argue that the current negotiations
represent the best hope for long-term
peace and security," said a leading pro-
Israel activist Monday. "But Israeli
citizens are fearful about their lives
today; they aren't hearing enough from
Washington about how this govern-
ment is prepared to help protect them
now."
Administration and congressional
leaders need to signal in unambigu-
ous terms that they back the tough - se-
curity measures that Mr. Peres has
said he will implement, and they have
to make it crystal-clear to Mr. Arafat
that such measures represent the only
hope for the survival of the tenuous
self-rule entity he now rules.
That won't be easy. Mr. Arafat's con-
stituents will howl if Mr. Peres follows
through with his promise of an all-out
war with Hamas; the international
p
Far left: Israeli medics try to resuscitate a
woman injured when a suicide bomber blew
himself up in Tel Aviv on March 4.
Top: There were shouts of anger in a
Jerusalem demonstratioh held after a bus
bomb explosion on March 3.
PHOTOS BY AP
telligence would have no dif-
ficulty locating at least 80 per
cent of the top brass.
* Mr. Arafat could stop let-
ting fugitive Hamas murder-
ers use the self-ruled areas as
safe havens. Two Palestini-
ans who killed a pair of Israeli
hikers in the Judean wilder-
ness are moving freely and
openly in Jericho, despite Is-
raeli requests for their extra-
dition.
* The Palestinian police
could ban street celebrations
of terrorist attacks and wakes
for the "martyrs." One, last
month in the West Bank town
of Kalkiliya, drew thousands
of demonstrators, including
two senior Palestinian police-
men.
* As for Hamas' middle-
aged, middle-class political
leaders, Mr. Arafat could ex-
pose them to what Barry Ru-
bin, a Tel-Aviv-based Harvard
"lhav
-
p—
Ewa,-
Bottom: An Israeli holds his head in despair
while others attempt to help the injured near
the Tel Aviv bombing.
community, never sympathetic to Is-
rael's agonies, will cry foul.
President Clinton's statement after
Monday's bombing in Tel Aviv sug-
gested strong American backing for
Israel's battle against Hamas; the ad-
ministration needs to remain resolute
in that support as the war intensifies.
2.Stop urging Yassir Arafat to
get tough with terrorists, and
start demanding it.
After every terrorist attack, the
White House issues statements urg-
ing a continuation of the Middle East
process and pressing Mr. Arafat to do
more to squelch terrorism.
And after every attack, Mr. Arafat
offers feeble statements condemning
anti-Israel violence and halfhearted
efforts to root out Hamas extremists.
Administration officials have argued
that further attempts to pressure Mr.
Arafat, such as strengthening the links
between American aid and the PLO
leader's performance in combating ter-
rorism, would jeopardize the Israeli-
Palestinian negotiations.
Now, with the peace process facing
a life-threatening emergency, such cal-
culations are meaningless.
Washington needs to use every
weapon in its arsenal to force Mr.
Arafat to disarm and permanently ban
paramilitary groups in the West Bank
and Gaza, to root out the Hamas in-
frastructure of violence and to forsake
his periodic lapses into the rhetoric of
holy war.
3. Accept Israel's decision to
seek separation from the Pales-
tinians, and help Mr. Peres find
ways to implement it.
Mr. Peres' hopes for a "normal" kind
of peace with the Palestinians have
been blown to pieces by the Hamas
suicide bombers. The only realistic sce-
nario for peace, Israeli officials agree,
is one based on separation. That is not
an attractive solution from an Amer-
ican perspective.
But it also reflects the harsh reali-
ties of a Middle East that may not yet
be ready for the emotional and politi-
cal sea changes that once were the sub-
stance of Mr. Peres' dreams.
Administration negotiators need to
assist in that process wherever nec-
essary, and they need to hold firm to
this course even when it generates the
predictable opposition from the Arab
world.
Congressional leaders have signaled
that additional aid to support the
peace process will be almost impossi-
ble in today's churning political envi-
ronment.
But separation may need an eco-
nomic boost for the construction of