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By John Podhoretz
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March 22, 2002 -- YES, there's nothing like a good U.S. peace-and-cease-fire
initiative to ensure that a bunch of Jews get killed and injured. With two
new suicide bombings in 18 hours' times adding 10 more Israelis dead and 100
injured to the death toll in the war with the Palestinians, the Israeli
casualty count in just the first three months of 2002 now tops all of 2001.
Washington believes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be calmed
before the United States can move against Saddam Hussein and Iraq. But the
only thing America can do is to exert pressure and moral authority on the
parties.
The problem is that only one of the parties responds to American pressure.
When America pressures Yasser Arafat, nothing changes. U.S. officials have
refused to meet with Arafat and placed the blame for the crisis on his and
Palestinian intransigence. Since December, America has acceded to Israeli
efforts to isolate and neutralize Arafat.
In response, the Palestinians have grown even more aggressive. Suicide
bombings have increased in number and the Palestinian Authority tries to
sneak 50 tons of highly destabilizing weapons into Gaza.
The pressure doesn't seem to work.
By contrast, when America puts pressure on Israel, it gets results. Let
George W. Bush describe Israeli actions as "unhelpful," and Israel responds
by abandoning a complex military and police action on the West Bank and Gaza.
What would you do, given the choice between exerting pressure on a party that
doesn't respond and exerting pressure on a party that does? You'd probably do
what George W. Bush & Co. did, and succumb to the temptation of pressuring
the party that will respond - despite the fact that it's not sending
psychotics to blow themselves up on buses filled with women and children.
It has ever been thus between America and Israel. When the administration of
Bush the Elder complained in public that Israel wasn't interested in peace,
that complaint alone forced the Israeli government to betray its own
principles and join an international conference in Madrid whence began the
"peace process" whose end result is the bloody war on civilians we see today.
Israel cannot bear to be on America's bad side. This isn't just a matter of
rational self-interest based in the Jewish state's economic dependence on the
United States. It's far more emotional. American anger toward Israel leaves
the Jewish state feeling entirely alone and friendless in a world
increasingly suckered by Palestinian propaganda, seduced by Arab oil and
still tempted by anti-Semitic fantasies.
That's why Israel acceded to American wishes so quickly and pulled its
military out of Palestinian-controlled territory following a barrage of
criticism from the Bush administration. The pullout was a gift of friendship
to Gen. Anthony Zinni, the State Department's cease-fire negotiator.
The Israelis have continued to garland Zinni with gifts - gifts in the form
of inaction in response to the recent Palestinian suicide bombings.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his fractured unity government are refusing
to act, solely to preserve the fantasy of an American-brokered cease-fire. By
behaving this way, Israel is basically doing for America exactly what it did
during the Gulf War.
When Saddam Hussein launched Scud missiles at the Jewish state in response to
the American attack on him, Bush the Elder told Israel not to strike back.
And Israel did not strike back.
Once again, Israel is refusing to defend itself - in this case, to
demonstrate the country's good faith in seeking peace.
America might see it that way - and indeed, the rhetoric coming from the Bush
administration toward the Israelis has become friendly again. But Yasser
Arafat and his men clearly do not.
They see Israeli concessions to the United States as a sign of weakness. They
think they've got Israel on the ropes. And when you've got an opponent on the
ropes, you don't back off. You keep inflicting blows on your stunned
adversary.
America succumbed to a terrible temptation by playing the one-sided pressure
game. In doing so, we have only made things worse. More Israelis are dead.
Israeli public opinion is being radicalized against the Palestinians. The
Palestinians are increasingly hopeful that international pressure will force
Israel to give them what they want.
"I am frustrated by the violence in the Middle East," the president said
yesterday. His frustration is understandable. But his methods are only going
to increase his frustration - not to mention the flow of Israeli blood.
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