Sharon's Hard Choice

by William Safire
September 23, 2002

Wasington
Before Palestinian Arabs can earn a state of their own, they 
willhave to fight and win a war - but not a war against Israel. 
Before they can claim readiness for sovereignty, the Palestinian 
majority must put in place leaders brave enough to win a civil war 
to crush rebellious zealots who demand the conquest of Israel.

The unwillingness of the aging returnees from Tunis to confront 
the insurrection of Hamas and Islamic Jihad against Palestinian 
authority was the greatest obstacle to Palestinian statehood. 
Needed now are new Arab leaders courageous enough to take on 
the victory-or-nothing absolutists responsible for the death 
of thousands and misery of millions.

But those men of the future have in the past failed to move 
into the vacuum at the top. Because they were loath to take over 
from the temporizing Tunis crowd, they forced the Israeli Army 
to act as anti-terror's surrogate. The irony is in the fire: 
only when Israel defeats Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other killers 
can the majority of Arabs step forward and create a new life 
for themselves. 

The best way for Israel to help peaceful Palestinians overcome 
the terrorist takeover attempt is to fight to win that war - 
to apply pressure consistently until the Arab terrorist minority 
quits or is destroyed. But Ariel Sharon's government is being 
asked to fight only for temporary respites. 

Its power to win is restrained by the European-Arab coalition 
in the U.N., now threatening to order Israel to ease up again 
on its retaliation for recent suicide bombings. Also holding 
Sharon back from fighting to win is his desire to keep dovish 
Labor Party politicians inside the unity tent. 

As a result, we see the oscillation between crackdown and 
ease-up that has led to a war without a winner. Tight 
suppression of Palestinian movement temporarily halts suicidal 
penetrations; such enforced cessation is falsely interpreted 
as a deliberate "lull" in terrorist attempts, which leads to 
cries for easements of Palestinian movement. When granted, 
relaxation is followed by more bombing, requiring another 
round of severe suppression. This has caused dovish commentators 
to market certain myths:

1. The journashrink analysis: Sharon is supposedly so 
"obsessed" with Arafat that he cannot make peace. 
That charge of irrationality turns truth on its head. 
To Sharon, who stunned political opponents with his carefully 
measured reactions, Arafat is irrelevant because there is no 
peace to be made with a man who is allied with extremists 
subverting the Palestinian cause. If obsession were driving 
Sharon, Arafat would have been captured, tried and jailed 
long ago.

2. The radicalization hypothesis: killing terrorist leaders 
supposedly incites more terrorists to replace them. 
On the contrary, the tracking and killing of suicide bomber 
masterminds - accompanied by strict security curfews and 
searches and the removal of the family profit motive - has 
demonstrably weakened terror organizations and aborted most 
of their missions.

3. The popularity projection: answering the slaughter of 
innocents by tightening the screws on Ramallah headquarters 
supposedly makes Arafat more popular with "the street." 
Humiliation is not martyrdom; the terrorist suspects trapped 
in headquarters are headed for trial, not for Parliament. 
Demonstrators can always be turned out for cameras, but the 
majority is no mindless mob; most suffering Palestinians 
are well aware that corrupt Arafat's fear of asserting 
authority over Hamas is no route to independence or a return 
to work. 

Those media myths swirl about the wisdom of continuing -
or of ending - the long, bloody oscillation of crackdown and 
ease-up. 

Ariel Sharon will soon have to choose: is his first priority 
to keep his Labor rivals in a unity government, as well as 
to accede to the coalition-building desires of his ally in 
Washington, and to accommodate Israel's ill-wishers in the 
U.N. - Or will the prime minister increase military pressure 
on the hotbeds of terror - at the risk of losing Labor 
support and precipitating new elections in Israel? 

Because elected Palestinian leaders have shown unreadiness 
to combat the rebellion of groups like Hamas, Israel's troops 
are forced to act against the extremist insurrection. Israel 
may have to fight to win that war against terror so that a 
vigorous neighboring state can be created led by reformist, 
peace-minded Palestinians.