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12/7
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34

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ACTON RENTAL & SALES

LARRY ARONOFF

page 31

Until now, Washington has refused
to recognize that the key to Mideast
peace was not evenhandedness and
honest brokering, but choosing democ-
racy over demagoguery. The facade was
kept up, though, as the U.S. weighed
in against "the cycle of violence" when,
in truth, there was none. Rather, there
were deliberate Palestinian attacks on
women and children and Israeli
responses aimed at soldiers.
As recently as Secretary of State
Colin Powell's Mideast policy speech
two weeks ago, America insisted on a
peace plan predicated on both sides
doing their fair share — Israel ceding
territory in return for Palestinian
pledges to try to stop the violence —
as if the requirements were equal, as if
Arafat was unable to stop the killing, as
if both sides had broken every promise
made. That policy has been proven to
be as empty as an Arafat promise.

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At the outset of the latest Palestinian
intifada (uprising), debates swirled over
the settlements as a hindrance to peace.
But as the murders continued, in Afula
and Hadera and Pardes Chana, it
became increasingly clear that the battle
was not over settlements or Jerusalem,
but Tel Aviv and the very existence of a
permanent Jewish state in the region.
So now, in the wake of the most
recent slaughter of Israeli youngsters
and other civilians, Washington has
given Israel a tacit green light to do
what it must to stop the terrorism.
It will not last long, this window of
opportunity. Soon enough, the Arab
states and the Europeans will weigh in,
coming to the aid of Arafat. Has the
Bush administration gotten the mes-
sage, finally, that Arafat cannot or will
not deliver an end to the killing?
In truth, it is quite possible that the
war against terrorism cannot be won.
As long as there is an individual with
more hatred in his heart than a willing-
ness to live, and the explosives at his
disposal to wreak havoc, there will be
terrorism. But what Israel must do is
destroy the infrastructure of terrorism:
the cells, mentors, suppliers, etc., just
as America seeks to do in its war
against Osama bin Laden. And what
America must do is place Arafat and
company squarely on the side of the
terrorists, and treat them accordingly.

Gary Rosenblatt is editor of the New

York Jewish Week. His e-mail address
is Gary@jewishweek.org

The other day, Secretary Powell said
this was Arafat's "moment of truth,"
but such moments have come and
gone for the 72-year-old PLO founder.
It is too late now. National liberation
movement leaders must seize their
moment of truth, as David Ben-
Gurion and the founders of the State
of Israel did in 1947 and 1948, choos-
ing reality over dreams in accepting a
tiny state of their own.

So Close, Yet Far

Arafat had his chances, most notably
when he failed to accept former Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak's overly
generous offer at Camp David in the
summer of 2000: statehood and well
over 90 percent of the territories. But
he rejected the plan and, within
weeks, orchestrated or allowed the
intifada to break out, stoking the fires
of hatred and bloodshed ever since.
He will be remembered as the man
who led his people to the brink of
peace, and then to the brink of
despair.
Now, cornered once more, pressured
into action, Arafat seeks survival, not
peace. He has condemned last week-
end's bombings, arrested scores of mil-
itants, and says this time he will crack
down on the culprits as he did in
1996 — for a few months. But noth-
ing has changed. This week, he has
arrested only one of the more than
100 suspected terrorists whose names
Israel provided him. And we must
remember that in June, after the
Dolphinarium bombing in Tel Aviv
that killed 21 young people and
prompted Arafat to express shock and
outrage to the West, he wrote a con-
dolence letter to the family of the
bomber, praising him for his "heroic
martyrdom," as one who "turned his
body into bombs ... the model of
manhood and sacrifice for the sake of .
Allah and the homeland."
So much for a change of heart.
Chances are, Washington remains so
committed to its failed Mideast policy
that it will soon resume pressure on
Israel to stop its military action and
move toward concessions, as if ceding
settlements will satisfy rather than
encourage the Palestinians. But maybe,
just maybe, the United States has
learned a more lasting lesson here —
and those who were murdered so cal-
lously last weekend on a bus in Haifa
or the Ben Yehuda mall in Jerusalem
did not die in vain. Perhaps their
deaths marked the last straw, the day
America realized Yasser Arafat was still
the terrorist he always was.

❑

