Gerald Steinberg: The Speech Arafat Never Gave

The following op-ed is reprinted with permission from The Jerusalem Post. Views expressed are not necessarily those of IRIS or its staff.

Jason and Leiah Elbaum

IRIS

<http://come.to/israels.security> <http://www.netaxs.com/people/iris/>

THE SPEECH ARAFAT NEVER GAVE

Gerald M. Steinberg

Five years have passed since the late Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin and Yassir Arafat met in the White House to sign the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles (the Oslo agreement). At the time, millions of Israelis watched and waited for Arafat to send the Palestinians and their supports a clear and strong message declaring terrorism to be off limits. We are still waiting.

In July 1993, towards the climax of the negotiations, Rabin suddenly realized that in the multiple rounds of secret negotiations, Israeli security requirements had been neglected. According to Yosi Beilin’s account, Rabin declared that "for me, the central issue is terror.... It is inconceivable that we will sign an agreement with the Palestinians and without a PLO pledge to end terrorism." When Rabin pressed for a specific and public Palestinian commitment in the text of the DOP, Beilin and Peres tried to divert him with the preamble, in which both sides state their commitment to peace. This ambiguous formulation failed to satisfy the security-oriented Prime Minister who ordered that negotiators find a clear formula for renouncing terror.

However, Rabin’s involvement came too late, and as the deadline approached, he gave up on including an explicit anti-terror clause in the written agreement. The focus shifted to the White House ceremony. Here, Israelis were repeatedly assured, Arafat would reject terror in clear and demonstrative terms, in Arabic, and before the Palestinian masses and the rest of the Arab world. In this speech, Arafat was expected to tell Palestinians and Arabs to accept the legitimacy of Israel, thereby removing the ideological basis for violence.

Instead, Arafat came to the White House in his quasi-military uniform, packing a gun, and symbolizing the victory of what Palestinians called their armed struggle. In his speech, Arafat referred frequently to the pain and suffering of "my people", but there was no reference to Israeli suffering and no statement denouncing or renouncing violence.

After Oslo, even as Israeli forces were withdrawing from Gaza and Jericho, and the "peace process" was at its height, Palestinian terrorism continued and increased to unprecedented levels. Israelis were killed in suicide attacks, bus bombings, double bombings to kill people who went to save victims of the initial blast, drive-by shootings, and other forms of murder. In the speeches in mosques and public squares, Arafat and other Palestinian leaders called for Jihad and referred to the suicide bombers from Hamas as martyrs for the Palestinian cause. Official Palestinian Authority television carries hate-filled anti-Israeli propaganda, and this is also the theme of Palestinian summer camps. Occasionally, when forced by American pressure, Arafat or one of his aides has released a vague statement regretting the loss of life, but these are not substitutes for ringing public condemnations, in Arabic, and directed to the Palestinian masses. Even the process of repealing the clauses in the Palestinian National Covenant that call for the destruction of Israel is left deliberately vague, demonstrating the lack of commitment to removing the foundation for terror.

So five years after Oslo, and on the verge (maybe) of another agreement and more transfer of territory to Palestinian control, we are still waiting for this speech. Arafat has responded to the recent attacks with the same silence, tacitly approving the continuing use of terror as a political tool. For Israelis, peace means personal security, and in the face of Arafat’s silence, the Oslo agreement has turned out to be a naive experiment gone terribly wrong.

The impact of Arafat's acceptance or even encouragement of terror is not confined to Israel. Each act of global terrorism is linked and every explosive act encourages other zealots to make their mark and vent their anger through mass killings. The attacks on the U.S. embassies in Africa are the latest example.

The response to terror in Northern Ireland provides a sharp contrast and am important lesson. Recently, after the mass attack in Omagh carried out by a radical Catholic group calling itself the "Real IRA", and similar to the Hamas bombings, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams did not remain silent and or leave any room for doubt. In sharp contrast to Arafat, Adams immediately went before the cameras and with no hesitation declared "With no qualification whatsoever, I condemn what has happened". The message was clear to all his followers, and the splinter group that was responsible for the attack was forced to apologize for the killing of innocent people, and to declare a "complete cease-fire".

When such words are heard from Arafat and other Palestinian leaders, not just once, but repeatedly, and are backed by consistent action, the peace process for Israel will have begun.

Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg is the Director of the Program on Conflict Resolution at Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg Tel:972-2-5634426 Director, Program on Conflict Resolution Off:972-3-5318043 (8578) Political Studies Department FAX:972-3-5353307 Bar Ilan University

email:gerald@vms.huji.ac.il

Ramat Gan, ISRAEL http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~steing/index.shtml

*To subscribe to publication list, send the message below to listserv@vm.biu.ac.il:

sub gerald-L username@address.suffix Your Name

Back to IRIS Home Page