Is the Glass 7/16th Empty or 9/16th Full?
Yesterday, we drafted a JINSA Report wondering whether Vice President Cheney was optimistically offering Yasser Arafat something or pessimistically threatening him with something, as he pointedly didn’t meet with him in Israel. [Ed. Note: Full disclosure. Dick Cheney was a member of JINSA’s Board of Advisors prior to assuming the Vice Presidency.]
Yesterday, we drafted a JINSA Report wondering whether Vice President Cheney was optimistically offering Yasser Arafat something or pessimistically threatening him with something, as he pointedly didn’t meet with him in Israel. [Ed. Note: Full disclosure. Dick Cheney was a member of JINSA’s Board of Advisors prior to assuming the Vice Presidency.]
We looked at media accounts, which made conditions for a meeting appear extremely tough. In the NYT, Mr. Cheney said, “The Tenet work plan requires 100% effort by Chairman Arafat to stop the violence and the terror and I would expect a 100% effort to begin immediately.” According to the NYT, “Mr. Arafat, (Cheney) said, would have to talk to the Palestinian people about the importance of putting an end to terrorism and instruct his security services to enforce the cease-fire. He would also have to follow up to ensure that the plan moves forward. Mr. Cheney said Gen. Zinni [Ed. Note: no pushover] would be the judge…” The Washington Times said Arafat “would have to collect enormous numbers of illegal arms now in the hands of Palestinian military groups… in effect ending the Palestinian uprising with little to show…”
Offering or threatening – we thought it remained to be seen. We took our own limited optimism from the fact that Mr. Cheney clearly counted Israel among America’s allies in the war against terrorists and their supporters, while clearly counting Arafat on the other side – as one who must meet stiff conditions to receive wished-for prizes.
That’s the JINSA Report you didn’t get yesterday.
Today, with seven more Israelis dead in a bus bombing and 3 others in a Jerusalem market bombing, let us suggest that whether it was one or the other, Mr. Cheney has no business meeting with Arafat at all.
The US has offered the Palestinians inducement after inducement. Even beyond President Clinton’s agreement to the breathtaking offer Ehud Barak made at Camp David in July 2000. In this administration, Secretary Powell spoke the magic words “Palestinian State.” The President said it too and so did Mr. Cheney – indicating that American policy from the previous administration to the current one is unbroken on that point. The US even sponsored a resolution in the Security Council of the UN calling for such a state. If Arafat wanted to do business with Israel – and thus with the United States – he would by now have declared victory and begun to reap the rewards!
But he hasn’t and he won’t. His goal isn’t friendship with the US or a seat in the company of civilized nations. His goal is the destruction of Israel and to the extent he can manage it, the discomfiture of the United States in the region.
Although it is Israelis who are being mourned today by family and friends – as it was yesterday and the day before, and sadly as it likely will be tomorrow, it is in the eye of the United States that Arafat spit.