Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday September 6, 2002

In year of terror, Israel develops stronger U.S. ties while United States sends tough message to Arafat

LESLIE SUSSER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

JERUSALEM -- Launched in the shadow of Sept. 11, the Jewish year 5762 was marked for Israel by two developments directly related to those terror attacks: a tightening of ties between Israel and the United States and growing American disaffection with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Shortly after the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many Americans said they understood how Israelis felt about living in a society threatened by terror. Aside from the immediate emotional identification between the two nations' plights, however, a larger strategic alliance developed in the ensuing months.

In one of the defining policy pronouncements of his early presidency, President Bush said shortly after Sept. 11 that the international community would be divided between those who support terrorism and those who oppose it.

Arafat ultimately came down on the wrong side, and he paid the price in diplomatic ostracism. The discrediting of Arafat in American eyes was, for Israel, the most significant political development of 5762, appreciably changing the diplomatic balance between Israel and the Palestinians.

The process of discrediting the Palestinian leader took several months. Sensing the political shift, Arafat on Sept. 19 prudently declared a cease-fire in the intifada against Israel. If Palestinian attacks on Israel continued, he realized, he risked being branded as a sponsor of terrorism.

Although the cease-fire failed to hold even for a few days, Bush gave Arafat the benefit of the doubt and in early October formally noted America's support for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In November, Secretary of State Colin Powell followed this up with a major policy speech at Louisville University in which he called for an end to the intifada, an end to the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

With the Palestinian terrorist onslaught continuing and even intensifying, however, American perceptions began to change.

In late November, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni arrived in Israel as Powell's special envoy, charged with hammering out a cease-fire. Instead, the Palestinians greeted Zinni with a series of terror attacks that, over the course of a single weekend in early December, left 25 Israelis dead and almost 230 wounded. The attacks shattered Zinni's mission.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon held Arafat personally responsible for the attacks.

"He is directly responsible for everything that's happening," Sharon said, "and he is the great obstacle to peace and stability in the Middle East."

A few days later, after an Israeli bus was attacked outside the West Bank settlement of Emanuel on Dec. 12, killing 10 people and wounding 23, the Israeli Cabinet issued a statement declaring Arafat "no longer relevant," and severing all contact with him.

The decisive shift in Bush's attitude toward Arafat came after Israel on Jan. 3 seized the Karine-A, a ship purchased by the Palestinians and laden with arms acquired in Iran. The 50-ton cargo included Katyusha rockets, mortars, anti-tank missiles, anti-tank mines, sniper rifles and other munitions.

Arafat repeatedly denied any involvement, but by mid-January, the CIA was convinced of Arafat's direct involvement in the arms deal and of his links with Tehran, which formed part of Bush's "Axis of Evil."

Reportedly livid at the Palestinian leader's lies, Bush several weeks later formally suspended the Zinni mission and announced that he "was disappointed in Arafat." In early February, Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Arafat "must confront terror and choose peace over violence. He cannot have it both ways."

Still, the administration stopped short of severing ties with the Palestinian leader.

After months of suicide bombings, culminating in the Park Hotel massacre in Netanya on March 27, in which 29 Israelis, mostly elderly, were killed as they sat down to a Passover meal, Israel launched Operation Protective Wall, a major ground offensive designed to crush the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank.

However, when the Israel Defense Force trapped Arafat in his headquarters in Ramallah, Powell crossed the army cordon to meet the Palestinian leader in an abortive attempt to broker a cease-fire.

The invasion of the West Bank ended in controversial standoffs at Arafat's compound and at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, but Israel did manage to uncover a trove of documents in Palestinian Authority offices clearly proving Arafat's personal involvement in Palestinian terror.

On June 24, in a long-awaited policy speech, Bush appeared to signal the end of the Arafat era, calling on the Palestinians to elect new leaders "not compromised by terror."

The Bush speech was followed by a joint Israeli-American demand for extensive reform of Palestinian political, financial and military institutions.

One of the immediate implications of Arafat's gradual loss of credibility was that Israel was able to take increasingly tough countermeasures against Palestinian violence as the year progressed, as well as continue its policy of "targeted killings" of known Palestinian terrorists.

After Israel's mid-January killing of Raed Karmi, the head of Arafat's Tanzim militia in Tulkarm and a leading instigator of attacks, Palestinians launched an unprecedentedly ferocious wave of terror that started with a deadly shooting attack on a bat mitzvah celebration in Hadera in mid-January and culminated in the Netanya attack in late March.

Israel, nevertheless, persisted with its "targeted killings." In late July the air force assassinated the military chief of Hamas, Salah Shehada, dropping a one-ton bomb on his Gaza apartment and killing at least 14 civilians, including nine children. That attack prompted a wave of international condemnation and sparked a new round of Hamas attacks -- and, according to some Palestinian sources, undermined chances for at least a partial cease-fire.

Despite growing American support, Israel faced much international, especially European, criticism for its handling of the intifada. But the heaviest criticism came after a heated early April battle in the Jenin refugee camp, where Palestinians claimed a "massacre" had taken place with several hundred to several thousand victims. Though Israel said only some 52 Palestinians -- most of them armed fighters -- had been killed, the massacre claim gained credence around the world.

In July, a U.N. report dismissed the massacre claims, but criticized the IDF for allegedly not allowing humanitarian aid to reach Palestinians for several days.

The Jenin battle also coincided with calls throughout Europe to boycott Israeli goods and end contact with Israeli academics and other professionals.

The intifada took an enormous economic toll on both Israel and the Palestinians. On the Palestinian side, economic activity ground to a halt and food supplies grew scarce when Israel imposed long curfews on Palestinian cities to curb terrorist movements.

On the Israeli side, investments dried up, the gross domestic product per capita fell by 6 percent over a two-year period, fewer than 400,000 tourists visited in the first half of 2002 and unemployment was rapidly reaching record levels of more than 10 percent. The government introduced a number of austerity programs, but failed to reinvigorate the economy or restore public confidence in its economic policies.

For many Israelis, the main priority merely was to stay alive. Some pinned their hopes on the construction of a security fence that Sharon approved in June along Israel's convoluted border with the West Bank. But others warned that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not even good fences would make good neighbors.

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.