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Is Anybody Listening?
Monday, March 18, 2002
By Saul Singer
The Jerusalem Post

National Public Radio's Mara Liasson suggested that the US should simply make clear that "we are trying to minimize them [civilian casualties], but the Taliban isn't, and is putting their tanks in mosques, and themselves among women and children."



[ ... ]

There is a moral chasm between Israel and the Palestinians: Israel has been trying to minimize civilian casualties, the Palestinians have been trying to maximize them.



Yasser Arafat's health may not be what it once was, but the world seems convinced that he is hard of hearing. "YOU CAN HAVE A STATE," said first Israel, then the US, and now a unanimous UN Security Council. "You can stop fighting now," the world keeps trying to tell Arafat, as if he is an unruly child, having trouble focusing.

The message to Arafat of this week's historic UN Security Council resolution was simple: stop terror and a state is yours. Israel, for its part, is completely on board -- not a peep of protest from Jerusalem. So why is it not time to put away the guns and take out the confetti? Why does everyone assume the resolution will make no difference?

Part of the reason is that the Palestinians may be the first nation in history to be offered a state on a negotiating platter and yet insist on launching a war of independence anyway. At Camp David, Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton practically begged Arafat to take the state he said he wanted, with half of Jerusalem as his capital. Arafat was offered the "Saudi plan" (withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines with minor adjustments) and turned it down -- before the bullets started flying.

The Yossi Beilins of the world argue that Israel's offer was not good enough, but this is not serious. You cannot argue at the same time that the Palestinians are pragmatists who are ready to make a deal that Israel can live with, and yet decided to launch a war rather than negotiate.

The more logical explanation is that Arafat does not accept the bargain on the table: a state for peace. If he wants a state at all, he wants a state without any agreement with Israel, or with an agreement that leaves the conflict open -- that is, a state without peace.
(More: The International Jerusalem Post News Source)
2002 © The Jerusalem Post.

Dan