Now that the 'partner' is gone

by Limor Livnat 
December 24, 2001

(December 24) - Exactly 20 years ago, the State of Israel, 
in order to protect its citizens, was forced to drive the 
PLO from Lebanon. Until Operation Peace for Galilee, Yasser 
Arafat succeeded in doing in Lebanon what he had failed to do 
in Jordan: He took parasitic control of a country bordering on 
Israel by building a military infrastructure and an international 
terror network, with the intention of waging total war against us. 

Israel rescued its neighbors from Arafat twice: Jordan in 1970 and 
Lebanon in 1982. Today, Israel must rescue itself from that very 
same person, who, like Frankenstein's monster, must destroy any 
country that provides him with sanctuary. 

The government of Israel has attained an impressive diplomatic
achievement, in that both the United States and the European 
Union support its claim that the Palestinians must eliminate 
terror immediately and unconditionally. 

However, there are those among us, and among our friends, for whom 
it is difficult to recognize the fact that it is not possible to 
eliminate the Palestinian terror apparatus without removing the 
one who built it and continues to head it. 

Ever since Arafat's supposed recognition of Israel and of United 
Nations Security Council Resolution 242 in 1988, he has adopted a 
brilliant strategy which has succeeded, until recently. He convinced 
Western and Israeli public opinion that he is prepared to compromise 
and to make a "peace of the brave" with Israel. But at the same 
time, he built a military infrastructure in Judea, Samaria, and the 
Gaza Strip, with the support of Arab countries and terrorist 
organizations that operate within those areas. 

Today, it is abundantly clear to almost everyone that a murderer 
remains a murderer. Even the perverted lip service of the head of 
the Palestinian Authority has succeeded in arousing ridicule and 
rejection. 

The time has therefore come to put an end to the nauseating talk 
regarding Arafat the person: whether he is a partner, or not; 
whether he is relevant, or not. 

The time has come for action on our part. And I do not mean the 
bankrupt idea of unilateral separation. That idea will not increase 
security in the slightest. It is but the result of hasty and 
irresponsible thinking by the same people who supported the Oslo 
process from its beginning, and throughout its course. 

There are three actions that should be taken immediately: 

* All the terrorist organizations must be disarmed. People who 
do not know how to behave with weapons should not be in possession 
of weapons. That is how the British acted in Northern Ireland. 
Disarming terrorist organizations was an incontrovertible condition 
for the very conduct of peace talks with the political factions. 
The West's peacekeeping forces acted similarly in Kosovo. Whoever 
did not surrender his weapons was disarmed by force. 

* The artificial distinction between the terrorist organizations'
political factions and military factions must be repudiated. What 
is good for the Americans in Afghanistan, which is far from American 
shores, is good also for us regarding the Palestinian Authority, 
in our own backyard. The Americans do not differentiate between 
the Taliban leaders and those of their army; and they do not 
differentiate between Osama bin Laden and the "religious" official, 
Mullah Omar. Therefore, we must relate to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin 
exactly as we do to Izzadin Kassam. We, just as the Americans are 
doing, must bring down the totalitarian regime and not only the 
terrorist infrastructure. 

* We must cease our traditional, reactive stance and take a
diplomatic-public relations initiative. There is an alternative 
to Arafat and his coterie - leaders who are more interested in the 
welfare of their people and less in mythology. 

At the end of the 1980s, minister of defense Yitzhak Rabin and 
foreign minister Moshe Arens began to establish contacts with a 
pragmatic local leadership. At that time, the PLO murdered some of 
the local Arab leaders who were willing to compromise with Israel. 
In 1988, the PLO received legitimacy from the US administration. 
However, immediately following the Gulf War, the PLO lost this 
legitimacy and was on the brink of collapse. 

That was a golden opportunity to strengthen the local Arab 
leadership at the expense of the PLO. But the architects of Oslo 
believed that a weakened PLO was an ideal partner for negotiations. The rest is history. 

Ten years later, the same opportunity is repeating itself and 
Israel must not again play into Arafat's hands. We must build 
relations of trust with leaders who are from the "inside," those 
who are prepared to climb down from the tall tree of the PLO's 
mythology and finally care about the interests of their people. 

All of this is achievable only if we stop expressing any agreement 
for a Palestinian state in wide swaths of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. 
There must not be a state such as this, and therefore, there must 
not be any talk encouraging it. 

Local leaders with local autonomy, yes. But a state? No! 

(The writer is minister of education.)