atm

Op inion

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Dry Bones

Dangerous Delusions

Delusion One

A

merica is kidding itself by accepting the
rhetoric of a "war on terrorism" to
describe the military action under way in
Afghanistan and the temporary alliances
being formed to support that action. The operations
may be a first and necessary response to the attacks
of Sept. 11, but they are closely and visibly targeted
at a single figure, Osama bin Laden, along with his
Al Qaida network of operatives and the present
rulers in Kabul, the Taliban.
A real war on terrorism requires simultaneous
action on a lot of fronts, including some where our
national interests are not directly at stake, and a
firm, dependable partnership with other
nations — Israel among them — that
share a commitment to eradicating the
practice of making innocent civilians tar-
gets for religious or nationalist rage.
If it is serious about leading a coalition against ter-
rorism, the United States cannot get in bed with
states like Syria that actively encourage terrorism. We
may want a united Arab front supporting the
Afghanistan operation, but we cannot let Saudi
Arabia off the hook about its subsidies to Al Qaida,
however much we worry about losing Saudi oil.
Finally, in a real war on terrorism, America cannot
leave the assets of Hezbollah and Hamas untouched
while freezing the funds of other terrorist groups.
If we persist in the belief that a war on terrorism
can be won simply by launching conventional mili-
tary, forces against a regime in Afghanistan that
wants to go back to the 12th century, we will be
avoiding the hard decisions and squandering an
opportunity that may not soon come again.

inate bin Laden by any means. But it
must realize that the policy can have
consequences for its elected leaders.
The Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine (PFLP), which claimed
responsibility for gunning down
Ze'evi, said it was responding to
Israel's killing of its leader, Mustafa
Zibri, in August.
A corollary of this fact is that Israel
needs to stay on target with its
responses to actions. Sending tanks to
Bethlehem and Ramallah and reclos-
ing the crossings seems to be the
wrong response. It is too
easy for Palestinians — and
the rest of the world — to
see that as collective pun-
ishment rather than a precise
response to a specific terrorist act.
Israel needs to keep the focus on ter-
rifying the terrorists rather than seem-
ing to be trying to further destabilize
the Arafat regime that, for a change,
did the right thing in immediately
declaring the PFLP an outlawed
organization. Of course, it remains to
be seen whether that designation will
actually lead to arrests of PFLP leader-
ship, as Israel has demanded.

EDITORIAL

Delusion Two

Israel is deluding itself if it believes that it can target
the leadership of the Palestinian terrorists for assassi-
nation and not find its own leaders in the crosshairs.
Last week's murder of Rehavam Ze'evi, Israel's
tourism minister, is a case in point.
Israel says it has to target the terrorist leaders
because Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority won't
arrest them, and the argument has considerable
force, particularly in light of the U.S. effort to elim-

Delusion Three

The world as a whole is clinging to the dangerous
premise that a Mideast peace process exists to be
revived.
The plain fact is that the process, as defined by and
since the 1993 Oslo agreements, has been killed by
Arafat's uncompromising rejection of the statehood
offer made at Camp David and the subsequent bloody
intifada (uprising), in which at least 175 Israelis and
nearly 500 Palestinians have died. The stains of that
spilled blood can not be washed away in the near future
by outside callsfor resumption of a failed process.
By clinging to the notion that a meaningful-Jong-
term peace can now be negotiated between Israel and
the Palestinians, the world simply delays what is possi-

ble now — a limited armistice, reminiscent of the one
struck in 1949 between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
The Sept. 11 attacks in America and the government's
response of enlisting allies for its "war on terrorism"
provide a real opportunity for both Arafat and Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to arrange a stand-down
now If both sides could stay calm for a few years, they
could work on rebuilding a level of mutual confidence
that might eventually lead to a real solution.
But if the world, and the Bush administration,
keep pushing for something else — as the State
Department did a few weeks ago by leaking the
Bush plan to endorse a Palestinian state — they will
simply be confirming to the most militant
Palestinian elements that bloodshed gets results. ❑

The Corruption That Breeds Islamic Rage

Ramat Gan, , Israel
ost of the excuses for the support of
Islamic terrorist attacks against the
U.S. and the West are nonsense,
including the link to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
For the past 53 years, much of the Arab world
has provided only lip-service in support of the
Palestinians. Rather, the hatred of Israel in coun-
tries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq
reflects the primary causes underlying this fury.

M

Israel is seen as an agent of America
and the West, and,.for this purpose,
Jews and Christians are lumped into
the same category. Except in propagan-
da meant largely for external consump-
tion, the tiny Jewish state is not a root
cause of this extremism.
Other explanations focus on Islam to
explain the support for terrorists such
as Osama bin Laden and for groups

GERALD M.
STEINBERG

- Special
Commentary

such as Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.
However, these factors do not explain the
rise of militant fundamentalist and vio-
lent Islam in the past three decades.
While some aspects of Islam are particu-
larly violent, this religion, like others, has
numerous branches, and, in many places,
Muslims live peacefully next to their
non-Muslim neighbors.
STEINBERG on page 34

