From the Editor

Ostrich Policy

We publish in this issue an article by an Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer outlining the declared goals of the Palestinian Authority and the strategy by which it is achieving those goals. The irrefutable thesis of the article is that while Israel seeks an end to the conflict through compromise, the Palestinian Authority adheres to the goal of eliminating Israel.

The author focuses on the rhetoric and actions of the Palestinian Arab side of the equation, but the reader must ask himself "What are the implications for Israeli policy makers?" And the answer is surely that they should be doing nothing to advance the goals of their enemy, i.e. the worst thing Israel can do is to permit fulfillment of the first stage of the enemy's strategy -- a Palestinian state -- from which it plans to launch the next stage.

Yet this is precisely what Sharon agrees to do, and not in the distant future, but in 2003, according to the "road map" laid down by President Bush. In an interview on Israeli TV on November 13, Sharon shrugged off the significance of a Palestinian state, asserting the Palestinians in effect had one already, since they had its institutions, including a president, Parliament, police etc. But as Aaron Lerner of Independent Media Review and Analysis points out, there is more to a sovereign state than institutions: "Israel may get bad press now when the IDF goes into Ramallah or closes down Gaza Port, but it's not an international incident. The story is completely different, the stakes considerably higher, when we are talking about a sovereign state of Palestine, protected by defense treaties with our enemies and supported by scores of nations willing to break any blockade or other restrictions we try to impose on the terror state." Can one imagine the reaction of the UN if Israel invades a sovereign state? Of the EU? Even the U.S.?

Why then does Sharon pretend -- for he surely knows better -- that a Palestinian state will not prove a mortal threat? The devastating reality is that Sharon has no strategy of his own to counter that of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. All he has is short term considerations: he wants to keep President Bush happy (ergo, endorse the "road map"); he wants to keep the EU from sending an "observer force" to areas under PA control (ergo, avoid being "provoked" into tough responses to Arab terror that might galvanize the EU); he wants to neutralize the Israeli left by including it in his government (even if the price is continuing the appalling policies the left devised, and that produced the apocalyptic disaster now facing the country).

Shimon "Learns"

Shimon Peres told the Israeli daily Ma'ariv: "I have learned from experience. I put my trust in a lot of good will and that did not justify itself." Did you think that Shimon had learned from the failure of Oslo? That experience had taught him that Arafat had made a fool of him? Think again. Now moving toward his ninth decade, Shimon remains to the end a Wise Man of Chelm, impervious to experience. Shimon is complaining that he was betrayed by Ariel Sharon! Not that Shimon has lost his lust for power. He is ready to rejoin a Sharon-led government if he obtains "more detailed guarantees."

To be sure, Peres is a little miffed with Arafat. He now looks to Arafat's lieutenants: "The people around him [Arafat] are a group of intelligent people that we can talk to. We have to try and try again." In his speech to a delegation of New York state and city elected officials brought to Israel by the UJA-Federation, Peres declared that in two to three years "we will see a new Middle East."

Expel Arafat?

Rival Benjamin Netanyahu has been sparring with Sharon over Arafat's fate. Sharon wants to leave Arafat alone while Netanyahu says he will expel him. Here is what Jan Willem van der Hoeven, director of the International Christian Zionist Center, has to say about the debate.

"Would one expel Hitler or try him in court for genocide?

"Would the U.S. expel Osama bin Laden if it had the opportunity to arrest and try him for mass murder?

"If Marwan Barghouti, an Arafat underling, is to be tried for murder and incitement to terror under Israeli jurisprudence;

"And if Adolph Eichmann was not left free after 'expelling' himself to Argentina, but was brought to justice in Israel;

"Should this feeble and cowardly solution be applied in this case -- that one of the most vicious ever murderers of Jews go free and be expelled to enjoy his life?

"It is a monstrous solution!"

(Continued on p.11)

Outpost               - 2 -               December 2002