SamSaid!

THE ARAFAT DILEMNA

     To the USA and Israel, Yasser Arafat poses a major dilemna. How do we deal with him? The problem is that Arafat is a terrorist. He was 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years, ten years and now. He is surrounded by terrorist henchmen who have no great desire for peace or a cease-fire. He can't be trusted and his handshake is about as useless as a “slow down” sign on a 70 mph freeway. For decades he has existed to kill Jews with the objective of destroying Israel. To most observers, that should come as no surprise. Arafat has never been a builder; rather, he has been a destroyer. And still is.

    So, do we deal with him or not. Is there any such thing as giving him still another chance? Frankly, I think things have reached the point where even if he wanted peace he couldn't deliver. His mad dogs are loose and he can't control them. If he says to Hamas, Hezbollah and Jihad “Hey guys, knock it off  –  let's cease fire, recognize Israel and negotiate for our Homeland”, they will either laugh at him or blow him away. More likely the latter. Funny how Palestinians are martyrs when one of their suicide bombers takes 100+ innocent Israeli civilians with them, but deaths at the hands of the Israeli military are “assassinations”. Everybody got that??

     So in dealing with Arafat, we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. Problem is that we are compromising our position on dealing with terrorists. The Arafat leopard simply hasn't changed its spots. Truly a dilemna. We will probbably put up a diplomatic smokescreen and negotiate with him some more but don't expect a lot. The real problem is that there will be no peace until both sides REALLY want peace. We can't force the Palestinians and their corps of terrorist-directed suicide bombers to desire peace. At some point in time it will have to come from them either because they think it is the right thing to do or because the price of continuing conflict is too high. The Palestinian leaders can't comprehend the former and reject the latter.

     Remember the old saying, “You never get order out of order”. It is hard to tell how close this issue is to rock bottom. From my vantage point, it is pretty hard to root for the Palestinians  –  whether or not there is substance to their cause.