Lost in the Wilderness
EDITORIAL Lost in the Wilderness Right now the Bush administration seems to be lost in the wilderness without a moral or strategic compass. This is a stunning development, for less than three...
...No, the victor right now seems to be Saddam Hussein...
...We are simply being descriptive: Arafat is a terrorist...
...2. "THE SOLUTION WILL NOT BE PRODUCED BY TERROR OR THE RESPONSE TO TERROR...
...One document, dated January 7, 2002, is a request for payment from the head of the Fatah-Tanzim terrorist cell in Tulkarm on the West Bank, a man named Raed al-Karmi who had publicly admitted taking part in attacks on israeli soldiers and civilians...
...A former head of the Middle East division of the Defense Intelligence Agency told Gordon that the Palestinian Authority's security office is "likely part of the problem...
...The Bush administration wanted to calm tensions in the region with the Cheney and Powell trips...
...In another document, dated September 19, 2001, a senior Fatah leader asks Arafat to approve payment of $2,500 to Karmi and two other terrorists: Ziad Muhammad Daas and Amar Qadan...
...This was only a day before Powell's planned meeting with Arafat...
...ians, if they walk into hotels and blow up Jews celebrating Passover, or if they fly passenger jets into the World Trade Center—that is terrorism...
...The question is not whether terrorists claim to be acting on behalf of a legitimate cause...
...Instead, they made things worse...
...It's time to let Israel take decisive action against terrorism, which would be consistent with the Bush Doctrine and would help clear the decks for us to go after Saddam...
...Of course they do...
...It is a sign of how lost this administration is today that Secretary Powell has unwittingly mouthed the logic of the administration's harshest critics...
...If they kill innocents, if they murder civilThe question is not whether terrorists claim to be acting on behalf of a legitimate cause...
...But its ramifications go far beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...
...in the document, he asks for payment to 12 Fatah terrorists under his command...
...Thanks in large part to the administration's mishandling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—which began with vice President Cheney's trip to the region almost a month ago—the Arab states are much less inclined to be helpful in any effort against Iraq...
...The documents can be viewed at www.idf.il...
...We would fight terrorism and the regimes that support and harbor terrorists...
...Qadan is a terrorist chief in Ramallah...
...it was his way of saying that the israeli military operation against the terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian territories could not succeed...
...israeli forces discovered mortars, heavy machine guns, yarmulkes, and "other disguises for suicide bombers" in the headquarters of Jabril Rajoub, the head of the security office...
...The president will not find a way out of the wilderness until he finally realizes that the answer is no...
...In recent days, the israeli government has released documents discovered in the offices of the Palestinian Authority that show Arafat approving payments to terrorists and terrorist organizations operating against Israel...
...We believe Arafat's days are numbered as a major player in the Middle East...
...Above all, when we saw evil, we would call it by its name...
...And never mind that Powell is quite wrong in insisting that the Israeli operation will accomplish nothing...
...Secretary Powell made this statement in Madrid last week...
...In recent days, the administration has behaved as if it is petrified of the "Arab street" and potential instability in the Arab world...
...But there's reason to wonder whether Bush will be wary of challenging Arab opinion on Iraq for some time...
...1. NEGOTIATING WITH TERRORISTS As this magazine went to press on April 12, Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Jerusalem, where Yasser Arafat's Al Aksa Brigades had just set off another deadly bomb...
...As the Jerusalem Post reports, Daas commands the Fatah-Tanzim cell that carried out the massacre of Israelis celebrating a bat mitzvah in January 2002...
...And Islamic fundamentalists also have aspirations which might be called legitimate...
...If that's the case, we should all learn to stop worrying and love Saddam's bomb...
...it is what they do...
...After September 11, the left said about America's war on terrorism what Powell is saying about Israel's war on terrorism: that it could never succeed, that it would not address the "root causes" of terrorism, that it would not address the anti-Western and anti-American anger that was seething in the Muslim world, that killing Islamic radicals and Afghans would only create more terrorism...
...Will it end terrorism against Israel once and for all...
...The Bush administration appears now to be operating on the theory that it must find some sort of Middle East settlement before it can make a move on Iraq...
...Administration officials seem to have convinced themselves that "moderate" governments in Jordan and Egypt and Saudi Arabia were on the verge of being toppled—hence the sharp administration turn against Israel...
...Gordon also reports that israeli military officials have uncovered significant evidence showing that the Palestinian Authority's preventive security office—which is supposed to be responsible for cracking down on terrorism in the territories—is itself linked to suicide bombings...
...The most startling thing about Powell's comment is what it implied about our war on terrorism...
...Set aside for a moment the amazing equivalence implied in Powell's statement: the suggestion that Palestinian terror and Israel's military response are equally to blame for the current crisis...
...one memo is dated September 16, 2001...
...Can we fight a war on terrorism while we seek to appease this proven sponsor of terrorism...
...Now, we've always believed that most Arab states will have no choice but to go along once President Bush makes his decision...
...They think their countries should be run according to Islamic law...
...Robert Kagan and William Kristol...
...Documents found in the office of Arafat's financial director, Fuad Shubaki, show the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades requesting funds for electrical components and chemicals used in suicide bombs...
...The request was sent to Marwan Barghouti, head of Fatah's West Bank organization, and one of the leading organizers of suicide bombings against israeli civilians...
...Is our "response to terror" no solution, too...
...If Israel's "response to terror" is counterproductive, does the same principle hold true for our actions against Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and others...
...This is a stunning development, for less than three months ago the president set forth a grand and clear vision for American foreign policy...
...Unfortunately, in the interest of currying favor with the Arab states, the Bush administration has seriously blurred the purpose, the meaning, and the justification for our war on terrorism...
...Then Arafat's signature...
...After three weeks of letting the Arabs shape the agenda, it is time for Bush to take charge again of his own destiny, and ours...
...Again, there is a note from Arafat: "allocate $600 to each of them...
...The question is what they do...
...If President Bush wants to find his way out of the wilderness, he will have to drop this line of thinking...
...There is more...
...They think the West is poisoning their culture...
...Instead of demanding that Israel halt its war on terrorism, President Bush should be demanding a return to clarity by his own advisers...
...On the contrary, the Israeli military campaign, which has rounded up over a hundred known terrorists, uncovered weapons caches and bomb-making facilities, and revealed the paper trail showing how Arafat and the Palestinian Authority work with the terrorist cells, could well have a substantial impact in reducing the frequency of terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens...
...We don't use that term flippantly, as hyperbole, or even as an insult to Yasser Arafat...
...As the New York Times's Michael R. Gordon notes, "Suicide bombings by the Aksa Brigades began in November" 2001...
...3. SADDAM'S VICTORY The big winner in the current fiasco will probably not be Yasser Arafat...
...Critics of President Bush's war on terrorism have been saying all along that "the response to terror is no solution...
...We would press for freedom and democracy around the world, but especially in the Muslim world...
...Amazingly, though it postponed any meeting for at least a day, the Bush administration still seemed inclined to have the American secretary of state meet with this terrorist leader...
...We still believe that...
...They wish the Saudi royal family were out of power...
...And that is what we are fighting against...
...We have no way of evaluating the administration's fears, but if it is so afraid of instability in those countries today, what are the chances it will risk an invasion of Iraq six months or even a year from now...
...Do the Palestinian people have legitimate aspirations...
...Now look how far we have moved away from those noble aspirations...
...The question, though, is not what people want...
...At the bottom of the document is a note in Arafat's handwriting: "Please allocate $350 to each...
...Does President Bush still believe Yasser Arafat is a man with whom we can do business...
...The Bush administration will not find its way back out of the wilderness until it remembers the key principles of the war on terrorism...
...The document shows that Barghouti passed the request to Arafat with a note asking him "to order the allocation of $1,000 for each of the fighter brethren...
...Of course not, but neither will the American operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere end terrorism against the United States once and for all, as the Bush administration has repeatedly reminded us...
Vol. 7 • April 2002 • No. 31
