The White Paper has several paragraphs on what it calls "The Root Causes" of Arafat's behavior. It does not zero in on the obvious "root cause:" Arafat is committed to eliminating the state of Israel and pursues that unchanged purpose in word and deed. No, the White Paper launches into pop psychology, writing of Arafat's "strategy of avoiding choices," his proneness to "conspiracy theories" and that all-purpose explanation "diverting attention from domestic failure." Indeed even now the White Paper cannot bring itself to conclude the obvious. It waffles, saying that the evidence indicates either that the P.A. leadership has opted for violence or that Arafat has "not yet" made "an irreversible choice for peace." As Steven Plaut, one of Outpost's favorite contributors, would say, Earth to Israel. HELLO.

Prime Minister Barak has repeatedly, self-righteously declared that even if the "peace process" fails, it was an experiment that had to be undertaken and pursued in order for Israelis to look themselves and each other in the face, secure in the knowledge that they had done everything possible to achieve peace. But as this White Paper makes clear, the agreements with Arafat, from Oslo to the recent abortive attempt to sign yet another one at Camp David, constitute reckless endangerment, which is deservedly considered a crime. It means acting with indifference to clearly forseeable consequences that endanger life. All the murdered Israelis Rabin used to describe as "victims of peace," those who have been murdered or maimed since -- indeed, the state itself, its very existence in deepest jeopardy -- are victims of a series of Israeli governments guilty of reckless endangerment. Sever Plotzker, the far left economics editor of the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, momentarily shaken out of his peace delusions, has lamented how "only two short weeks ago" he and his progressive friends bought furniture in Ramallah and gambled in the Jericho casino and asks "Where was the unseen future hiding?" The future was neither hiding nor unseen. Only the wilfully blind could fail to see it.

Arafat and his men have now made their intentions crystal clear once more. Repeatedly he and other members of his government describe their strategy as a combination of violence and negotiations, with each advancing the other until the final goal of eliminating the Jewish state is achieved. And they make no attempt to disguise that final goal. It can be read right now on the official Fatah website. In Fatah's words: "Our people refuse...to use the Intifada merely to 'improve' our position at the negotiating table. The Intifada of Independence will continue until we have realized all the rights that belong to a people under international legality -- including the right of our refugees to return to their land, under United Nations Resolution 194" (i.e., the right of Arab refugees to return to their homes in pre-1949 Israel). It is reiterated by Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee, in a recent article published in the London-based daily Al-Hayat. Abu Mazen says that at Camp David, Arafat made clear: "The Right of Return does not mean a return to the Palestinian State. When we talk about the Right of Return, we talk about the return of refugees to Israel."

While waiting for the next stage in "negotiations" (and Abu Mazen reports that at Camp David Arafat also clarified the Palestinian Authority's position on Jerusalem -- the entire area of the Temple Mount, including the Western Wall, would become Arab with Jews allowed to pray at the Wall so long as they did not blow a shofar), Israeli security officials have reported that the Palestinian Preventive Security forces are organizing terrorist cells to carry out bombing and shooting attacks (Ha'aretz, November 26).

And what is the response of Israel's government to the revelations of its own White Paper, the unrelenting violence, the proclamations over and over by Arafat and his henchmen of their determination to return Israel to the 1949 lines and then bury her with "returning" Arab refugees?

The response is more Wilful Blindness. Barak begs to return to the negotiating table to sign yet more agreements. He offers to put off the issue of refugees and Jerusalem temporarily and to immediately recognize a Palestinian state. He even offers Arafat a "Palestinian city" in the Negev! (see Ma'ariv, Dec. 1)

In the Bible, Ahijah the prophet, at divine bidding, pronounces God's curse on Jeroboam, the king of Israel. "He will forsake Israel because of the sins Jeroboam sinned and caused Israel to sin." (I Kings 14:16) The governments of Israel since Oslo, Labor and Likud alike, with eyes wide shut, have been negotiating Israel into oblivion. Theirs has been the ultimate sin of Wilful Blindness and, with the cooperation of Israel's "intellectual elite," sowing Wilful Blindness in the public.

The White Paper reprinted here is further evidence, if that was necessary, that Israel's only hope lies in a new leadership untainted by Oslo and determined to repudiate the tired assertion (and assertion of the tired ones) that there is "no alternative" to a "political solution," i.e. signing pieces of paper with Arafat. That is saying there is no alternative to Israel's suicide. If Israel would live, it must, even at this late date, carve out an entirely new path.

Rael Jean Isaac is editor of Outpost.

Outpost               - 4 -               December 2000