Just someone put a bullet in Arafat:
President Bush acknowledged today that efforts toward peace in the Middle East had stalled and he blamed the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, whom he branded a failure.
But Mr. Bush restated his commitment to a “road map” for peace and said a new Palestinian leadership would ease the way.
“I remain committed, solidly committed to the vision of two states living side by side in peace and security,” Mr. Bush said, referring to Israel and a future Palestinian state. “Yet that would only happen with new Palestinian leadership committed to fighting terror, not compromised by terror.”
Killing Arafat will not inflame the middle east- killing Arafat will be the first step towards peace in the region. He is, for all intents and purposes, the Mullah Omar of the PLO. He needs to be terminated.
the talking dog
Are you volunteering for this mission?
Israel is smart enough to know that it ain’t seen nothin’ yet in terms of violence against its citizens if IT were to be involved in Arafat’s death. Hence, it will do nothing of the kind.
John Cole
What a tired debating tactic, Talking Dog. Fine, then- I vounteer for whateverr they need middle age fat guys to do.
I presume that since you are so opposed to this suggestion, you will be volunteering to serve as an Arafat bodyguard?
Kathy K
He didn’t say he was opposed, he said Israel won’t do it. I think he’s right on that count. I also think he’s right that the area would explode if Israel were obviously involved. If they assassinate him, it’s going to have to look like a heart attack or something.
JKC
It’s going to take outside intervention to solve the Israel-Palestine problem, John. Both sides are too bloody stubborn to work this out themselves.
hln
Perhaps a more effective tactic would be to pith Arafat, much like one does to a frog about to be dissected. He’d not be dead, so he couldn’t be a martyr, but he’d be pretty damned ineffective (yes, I’m only half serious). I have no real answer to the problem. :(
hln
mark
You know, if you think about it, some Palestinian group who wants Arafat out could now probably kill him and the whole thing would be blamed on Israel.
Shawn Deats
The area *will not* “explode” if Israel kills Arafat. The animals (and the ones who are perpetrating the violence against innocents in the area are such) in Palestine could not possibly hate Israel any more, and were it possible for the various “miliant” groups to carry out more extensive attacks against Israel, we would be seeing them in retaliation to the many Hamas leaders who have been eliminated recently (remember that all of recent the bad bombings happened during the so-called road-map fiasco). The way to gain respect from these pieces of filth is by confronting them on their own terms, which, if that is done, will reveal Israel to be the stronger and will show them that any and indeed all of them can and will be eliminated if their precious figurehead can be disposed of. That, if nothing else, will really set the stage for a lasting peace and real negotiations in that region. I am sick and tired of hearing about the feared “Arab street.” Oooohh, we saw how terrible they were during Afghanistan and Iraq, didn’t we?
Andrew Lazarus
“Oooohh, we saw how terrible they were during Afghanistan and Iraq, didn’t we?”
We don’t seem, actually, to be doing all so well there. In fact, our army is losing soldiers at a faster rate than Israeli civilian casualties. I’m surprised these numbers haven’t made it Down Under.
As I mentioned before, leaving aside the remote but not zero possibility that the assassination of Arafat would cause the diverse Arab states to unite for a bloody if suicidal attack on Israel, there is a HIGH probability that the already-lame Israeli economy would be ruined utterly by European boycott. If Israel were to assassinate Arafat with the intention of dealing with a more honest successor, they might be able to pull this off, but in the event, they would instead continue the settlement (i.e., colonization) plan.
Dana
I agree with most of the posters here that assassination of Arafat would have serious negative consequences in terms of Arab tractability. Remember, not every Palestinian (or Jordanian, or Lebanese, etc.) is a member or supporter of Hamas/Islamic Jihad/et al *now*, but if they see that “duly elected” leaders are assassinated by the (perceived?) American-Israeli conspiracy whenever they don’t bow to American-Israeli pressure, the middle-of-the-roaders might be compelled to join the extremists. I agree things are bad there, but make no mistake: they can get MUCH worse.
Andrew, that’s an interesting thought about the boycott. I haven’t heard any rumblings about that being a possibility, but it would certainly add a new element to the equation. Have you heard something?
Justin Katz
Sorry for this… I’ve been on this topic for days in various places, and it’s made me a little silly: My view of killing Arafat is that it’s like the dusty red button on the rusty space-ship’s control panel.
The alien monsters are closing in to kill the travelers, and this ancient ship is the only escape. They’ve pushed every button on the thing to no avail. Now there’s just one ominous-looking button left — it may be a self-destruct, it may be “On,” but clearly nothing else will work if it is not pushed. And an explosion might be preferable to being eaten alive.
I just wish Israel would stop with the “gonna kill him this time” trial balloons. Do it or don’t. The country should know what “world opinion” will be.
Andrew Lazarus
Dana, Israel is an Associate Member of the EU and has favorable tariff treatment. A Belgian customs agent discovered that Israel was shipping in goods made in the Occupied Territories (e.g., Arava skin creams) in direct violation of the agreement. For some reason, he and then his government made it a cause celebre. Israel is only supposed to send in goods from inside the Green Line and from certain joint Israeli/Palestinian projects in the territories (all of which I would assume have closed).
A number of EU countries were annoyed enough at this to consider revoking the tariff preference, possibly a majority, but Denmark persuaded them to revisit the issue in two years (one of which has gone by).
If that’s the EU reaction to sending in contraband skin cream, can you imagine what would happen after an assassination? And it’s not an unprecedented idea: boycotts of Serbia under Milosevic and of the rump Turkish Cypriot entity have been pretty effective at damaging the economies concerned.
I’m also sorry to say that this is not the only instance where the Israeli government has played fast and loose with treaty obligations. Not in Arafat’s league for signing papers with no intent to follow them, but not averse to ignoring them when convenient either.