So now it is official: the government of Israel has decided to assassinate Yasser Arafat.
Not any more to “exile”. Not any more to “expel or kill”. Simply to “remove”.
Of course, the intention is not to remove him to another country. Nobody seriously believesthat Yasser Arafat will raise his hands and allow himself to be marched off. He and his men willbe killed “during the exchange of fire”. This would not be the first time.
Even if it was possible to expel Arafat to another country, nobody in the Israeli leadershipwould dream of doing so. How come? Allow him to make the rounds of Putin, Schroeder and Chirac?God forbid. So the plan is to remove him to the next world.
Not immediately. The Americans forbid it. It may make Bush angry. Sharon does not want to annoyBush.
Some people comfort themselves with the thought that this is just an empty resolution. It issupposed to be implemented at a time and in a way yet to be decided. But this is wishful thinking,a dangerous comfort. The decision legitimizing his assassination is by itself afar-reaching political act. It is intended to get the Israeli and international public usedto the idea. What used to sound like a crazy plot by extreme fanatics now has the air of alegitimate political process, with only the time and mode of implementation still open.
Anyone familiar with Ariel Sharon can see how things will develop from now on. He will wait forhis opportunity. It may come any minute, or after a week, a month, a year. He is patient. When hedecides to do something, he is ready to wait, but he won’t deviate from his goal.
So when will the planned assassination be carried out? When some big suicide attack will takeplace in Israel, one so big that an extreme reaction will be understood by the Americans, too.Or when something happens somewhere to divert world attention from our country. Or when somedramatic event, something comparable to the destruction of the Twin Towers, makes Bushfurious.
What will happen afterwards?
Arab leaders say that there will be “incalculable results”. But, in truth, the results can becalculated fairly well in advance.
The murder of Arafat will bring about an historic change in the relationship between Israeland the Palestinian people. Since the 1973 war, both peoples have been accepting the idea of acompromise between the two great national movements. In the Oslo agreement, after a processinitiated by Yasser Arafat practically alone, the Palestinians gave up 78% of the countrythat was called Palestine before 1948. They agreed to set up their state in the remaining 22%.Only Arafat had the moral and political standing necessary to carry the people with him, muchas Ben-Gurion was able to convince our people to accept the partition plan.
Even in the sharpest crises since then, both peoples have remained steadfast in their beliefthat in the end there will be a compromise.
The assassination of Arafat will put an end to this, perhaps forever. We shall return to thestage of “all or nothing”: Greater Israel or Greater Palestine, throwing the Jews into the seaor pushing the Palestinians out into the desert.
The Palestinian Authority will disappear. Israel will take over all the Palestinianterritories, with all the economic and human stress involved. The “de luxe occupation”,which allowed Israel a free hand in the territories, with the world paying the bills, will beover.
Violence will reign supreme. It will be the sole language of both peoples. In Jerusalem andRamallah, Haifa and Hebron, Tulkarm and Tel-Aviv, fear will stalk the streets. Every motherwho sends her children to school will be consumed by worry until they come back. Terror on thisside and on that side, an ever widening spiral of violence, automatic and incessantescalation.
The earthquake will not be limited to the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. Thewhole Arab world will erupt. Arafat the shahid, the martyr, the hero, the symbol, will becomean all-Arab, all-Muslim mythological figure. His name will become a battle-cry for allrevolutionaries from Indonesia to Morocco, a slogan for all religious and nationalistunderground organizations.
The earth will tremble under the feet of all the Arab regimes. Compared to Arafat, the ultimatehero, all the kings, Emirs and presidents will look unmanly, traitors and mercenaries. If oneof them falls, the Domino Effect will go into action.
Bloodshed will be universal. Every Israeli target – every airplane, every group of tourists,every Israeli institution, will be in constant danger.
The Americans have their reasons for vetoing the assassination. They know that the killing ofArafat will shake their position in the Arab and Muslim world to the core. The guerilla war thatis becoming ever wider in Iraq will spread throughout the Arab and other Muslim countries andthe world at large. Every Arab and Muslim will believe that Sharon acted with American consentand encouragement, whatever feeble verbal opposition there may have been. The fury will bedirected against them. A host of new Bin Ladens will plot revenge.
Doesn’t Sharon understand all this? Of course he does. The political nobodies who constitutethe government may be unable to see beyond the end of their noses, just like blinkeredgenerals, whose only solution is to kill and destroy. But Sharon knows what the consequencesare likely to be – and he relishes them.
Sharon wants to conclude the historic clash between Zionism and the Palestinian people with aclear-cut decision: solid Israeli control over the entire country and a situation that willcompel the Palestinians to get out. Yasser Arafat is indeed the “total obstacle”, as definedin the government resolution, to the implementation of this design. And a period of anarchyand bloodshed would be good for its implementation.
And the people of Israel? The poor, brainwashed, despairing and apathetic people does notintervene. The silent, bleeding majority behaves as if all this does not concern them andtheir children. They are following Sharon as the children followed the pied piper, right intothe river.
This thundering silence is disastrous. In order to prevent the disaster, it is our duty tobreak it.