So Where Does the 'Peace Process' Go From Here? by George Melloan Wall Street Journal October 10, 2000 Bill Clinton has been double-crossed again, this time by his little terrorist friend Yasser Arafat. Slobodan Milosevic pulled the same stunt two years ago when, on the heels of the much ballyhooed "Dayton Peace Accord," he unleashed his savagery on the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo. Maybe at some point the American president will learn that character is an important consideration in global politics. If you lie down with dogs, as the old saying goes, you're liable to wake up with fleas. It has been repeatedly observed that Mr. Clinton wants to leave behind a "legacy" when he relinquishes the presidency in January. How does chaos in the Middle East sound for a legacy? That seems to be what is shaping up right now as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak threatens to end the peace process entirely if Arafat persists in his use of violence to support his demands. The Israelis already have been condemned by the United Nations Security Council for using "excessive force" in containing the Palestinian rioting unleashed by Arafat, so what does Mr. Barak have to lose by cracking down more determinedly? The U.S., by the way, abstained from the U.N. vote, for fear that a veto of this one-sided resolution would reduce U.S. influence with the Palestinians. Some influence. Arafat showed his contempt for the Clinton administration last week by walking out on a meeting with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Mr. Barak at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Paris. Ms. Albright rushed after him and ordered the gates closed so he couldn't escape. But escape he did, using the incident to demonstrate, as a Wall Street Journal Europe editorial noted, that Ms. Albright is more in need of a peace deal than he is. If this view persists, Mr. Clinton's search for a legacy could prove to be very costly to Israelis and Palestinians alike. Indeed, the Clinton penchant for grandstanding about the "peace" deals he has orchestrated already has carried some high costs. His liaison with Milosevic continued long after it became clear that the Serbian thug had engineered ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and was not a trustworthy negotiating partner. Milosevic delivered the Dayton accord Mr. Clinton so badly wanted, but then assumed that his cooperation gave him carte blanche to resume his bloodthirsty practices in another venue, Kosovo. When that became too much for the world to stomach, the only U.S. recourse was a bombing attack on Serbia. Last week, Milosevic was overthrown by the Serbian people themselves, but as Jeffrey Gedmin wrote in these pages Monday, the country's new leader, Vojislav Kostunica, can hardly be described as a friend of the U.S. It is of course true that "peace" is an honorable objective and it speaks well for the American people that efforts on behalf of peace are so politically popular in the U.S. It can also be said that the U.S. officials employed in these endeavors, Ms. Albright in particular, are hard-working and sincere public servants. The fault lies elsewhere, in the failure of Mr. Clinton himself to properly evaluate the politicians he is engaging and to understand the limitations of his role. The fate of Israel became his responsibility when he, in effect, intervened in Israeli politics to help unseat former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and install Mr. Barak. Mr. Barak assumed that this White House interest in his election was merely a further reflection of the longstanding special relationship between the U.S. and Israel and that he could count on continued U.S. support in dealing with Arab militants. But he has no doubt by now begun to notice that in the Camp David talks it has been Israel and not Arafat's Palestinian Authority that has been asked to make most of the concessions. Hillary Clinton, now running for the Senate, gave her support for a Palestinian state, one of Arafat's goals. Mr. Barak came very close to accepting the re-partition of Jerusalem, a truly horrifying idea to anyone who remembers the partition that existed before June 1967. As pointed out above, the Oslo accords, another Clinton "achievement," created an armed Palestinian camp within territories ceded to the Palestinian Authority. Arafat agreed under terms of the accord to use his Palestinian police to prevent terrorist attacks on Israel, and for a while he seemed to be living up to the agreement as terrorism diminished. But when he didn't get his way at Camp David on the Jerusalem question, he went home and unleashed the riots that now are causing Israel and the Clinton administration so much chagrin. That is easy enough to do when Palestinians have for years been indoctrinated to hate Israel and to be implacable in their demands for Arab control of the Holy Lands. Some Arafat apologists, numerous among American liberals, argue that the Palestinian Authority leader has no control over the riots. That is a ridiculous assertion. He rules the Palestinian areas as a dictator, presiding over a high-handed and corrupt PA administration, and his well-armed police could easily bring rock-throwing youths under control if they wished. They are instead shooting at Israeli soldiers. Arafat achieved his present prominence through terror, practicing it not only against Israel but other Arabs, including the moderate Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza. Why should he give it up now, when it has served him so well? An even more interesting question is why would an American president risk so much on the assumption that Arafat could be charmed and bribed into becoming something other than what he has always been? The probable answer is that Mr. Clinton has had a lot to gain in American politics from playing peacemaker, whereas the Israelis have taken all the risks. The fat is in the fire now. The sacking of Joseph's Tomb in Nablus is an affront to Jews everywhere. The short-lived truce that existed when the Israeli Defense Force pulled out of Southern Lebanon is over, with the Hezbollah attacking northern Israel. In the well-armed Palestinian Authority police, Israel is faced with a hostile force operating inside territory it once controlled. If it uses massive force, as Mr. Barak now threatens, the results won't be pretty. Israel will face further censure in the U.N. and cries for retribution from its enemies in Europe. The British, for example, still resent their ouster from Palestine by Israeli guerrillas in the late 1940s and the French have made a business of supporting Arab causes. Most importantly, the American president who helped get the Israelis into this mess decided last Friday night that a veto of a skewed Security Council resolution might further inflame the Arabs. So the U.S., putative leader of the Free World, abstained. Where do we go from here?