by Michael Carrasco
Daily Lobo Columnist
This weekend news was released that President Bush is considering cutting ties with Yassir Arafat's Palestinian Authority in an effort to punish the terrorist turned corrupt despot for months of terror unleashed on Israel and for the recent interdiction of a ship with a sizable cache of weapons. This action is long in coming and most deserved.
Such a move is already being criticized, by Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia and by those that are unable to see past the disaster of nine years of peace negotiations. It is unfortunate that such criticisms abound, because if there is anything that the past year of violence has taught, it is that Arafat has negotiated in bad faith and is not deserving of the status that U.S. recognition allows him.
During the last, desperate days of the Clinton presidency, furtive talks went on between Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Barak. During these talks Barak offered more concessions than any previous Israeli leader ever. Despite a real cave on the part of Israel, including proposed cessions of major parts of Jerusalem and the promise of more land to come, Arafat responded by launching violent street protests and opened the floodgates of suicide bombers operated by Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
Arafat showed his true colors in the aftermath of the discussions. No matter what Israel would have offered, it wouldn't have been enough; he was too concerned with remaining in power.
A year later, he has still not put an end to the killing of civilians and as the capture of the weapons-laden ship demonstrates, is instead preparing for an intensified conflict. His regime is one of rampant corruption and brutality; this is exactly the type of leadership that the United States should have nothing to do with.
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The case of Arafat illustrates the biggest problem with Clintonian diplomacy-the willingness to accept illegitimate negotiation partners and the practice of claiming moral equivalence between two unequal sides.
Yassir Arafat spent most of the 1970s and '80s heading an organization that sought to maximize American and Israeli civilian deaths and generally advocated the explosion of anything remotely related to Israel. Despite this history, the Clinton administration accepted him as an honest broker regardless of his known penchant for graft and after winning a corrupt election. Of course, the Israelis that have the unique habit of electing their leaders were expected to treat this man as a legitimate representative and their leader's moral equal.
This phenomenon was not limited to the Middle East. The same strategy was attempted in Northern Ireland, where Clinton equivocated Her Majesty's government and civilian Protestants and Catholics with the IRA, whose ideology ranges from fascist to less fascist to Marxist and methods tend to be just plain murderous. The result of this practice is clear, after initial hope for the Good Friday Accords the beleaguered territory has descended into sectarian violence and its much-vaunted power sharing government has become an irrelevant monument to a solution gone bad.
Don't get me wrong; both of the conflicts I have cited are complex and beset by a variety of cultural and historical problems, making mediation very difficult. Still, it would be more effective to the negotiations and more honest to the people of both parties if the United States didn't recognize terrorists, strong men and other illegitimate individuals as lawful parties to these disputes.
Wouldn't the Palestinian people be better off if somebody that wasn't corrupt and was fairly elected represented them? Wouldn't the peace process in Northern Ireland be better off if the IRA terrorists were treated like the criminals they are and not allowed to skew proceedings to their narrow agenda?
If we are going to treat the sides equally, let's make sure that they are. That means only entering into talks with a legitimate civilian Palestinian leader, not Arafat or his cronies. It is illogical to claim that the democratic and friendly state of Israel is the equal of a regime headed by terrorists that seek the death of its people.
Ensuring that negotiations take place only between those that are not corrupt or beholden to terrorists is not only pragmatic, but also consistent with our nation's ideals. We should bid good riddance to Arafat and begin work on a solution grounded in democracy and the mutual benefit of both the Palestinians and Israelis.
Questions, comments or suggestions can be sent to Michael Carrasco at mjc_carrasco@hotmail.com.
