Stage II: Arafat’s Offer

We swallowed our first reaction to the horrific terror in Israel over the weekend to wait for the fallout.

There were hopeful signs. For the first time in our memory, there was no mention of a “cycle of violence” and no call for Israeli “restraint”from the State Department, and the White House was clear about Israel’s right to self-defense. The President’s meeting with Prime Minister Sharon appeared to be a meeting of the minds, and Yasser Arafat couldn’t reach special mediator Anthony Zinni on the telephone.

We swallowed our first reaction to the horrific terror in Israel over the weekend to wait for the fallout.

There were hopeful signs. For the first time in our memory, there was no mention of a “cycle of violence” and no call for Israeli “restraint”from the State Department, and the White House was clear about Israel’s right to self-defense. The President’s meeting with Prime Minister Sharon appeared to be a meeting of the minds, and Yasser Arafat couldn’t reach special mediator Anthony Zinni on the telephone. Nailing the Holy Land Foundation was a great move.

But Yasser Arafat is still being treated like the solution instead of the problem. Arafat was told for the umpteenth time to arrest the Hamas leadership and give 100% effort toward crushing terrorist organizations in the territories so that the parties can return to the negotiating table.This time, the US told him, we mean business. And indeed, we do appear really angry with him.

But what happens if he actually does it? What if (as no less than three nationally syndicated columnists in major papers wrote in tandem Thursday)Arafat actually has “his Altalena” and goes to war against Hamas the way David Ben Gurion went to war against the Irgun to establish his control of the new State of Israel? What then?

A return to the negotiating table? Why? Does the US think Arafat will now take less than Barak offered at Camp David in 2000? Will Israel offer more in the face of hundreds of dead and maimed citizens? Why should Israel offer Arafat anything?

Muddling around in negotiations based on Israeli offers to induce the Palestinians to grant Israel the legitimacy that is Israel’s right is a waste of time. We need some new thinking. Call it “Stage II” and start by inverting the “peace process.”

Stop asking Israel, “What will you offer the Palestinians in order that they will accept you?” Barak’s offer of an independent Palestinian State on contiguous territory with concessions by Israel in Jerusalem was rejected contemptuously. Instead, ask Arafat, “What will you offer Israel in order that Israel will accept Palestine as legitimate? And when you end the war against Israel and sign a verifiable peace treaty, inside what boundaries do you envision the State of Israel?”

Arafat has to produce a bottom line for Israel to consider whether to accept or make a counter offer. In his Kentucky speech, Secretary Powell talked about UN Resolution 242, so Arafat has to make Israel an offer that includes, “Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

Otherwise, it will be time for Stage III.