Charles Krauthammer: Mideast Violence: The Only Way Out [IMRA: Close but no
cigar]

The Washington Post 15 August 2001

[IMRA: Krauthammer is on the mark about the need for decisive action, but
the suggestion that a wall between the West Bank and Israel is an answer
ignores the considerable amount of time it would take to construct such a
wall - nor the considerable technical and practical difficulties associated
with the construction of such a wall - NOR Israel's security situation if it
pulled back so that it is left with a few kilometers of land between the sea
and a wall . Unfortunately, Peres, Beilin and the rest of the Oslo
experimenters have created a mess that can't simply be subjected to a
temporary cleaning and then put behind a fence and ignored. Krauthammer
suggests that Israel could then sit back a wait to see what develops on the
other side of the fence. But without Israeli involvement, Israel may find
itself facing a new Arafat etc. on the other side of the wall with one
difference: the Palestinians would have the benefit of renewing the
conflict form new lines with more territory under their belt thanks to the
unilateral Israeli withdrawals Unfortunately, our neighborhood is one in
which third and fourth best solutions (for example, limited autonomy) are
the closest to being the workable ones.

This cannot go on.

Massacre at a Tel Aviv disco: 21 teens dead, dozens maimed and wounded.
Mass murder at a Jerusalem pizzeria: 15 dead, more than 100 maimed and
wounded. Suicide bombing at a Haifa cafe: 20 injured. Daily gunfire,
drive-by shootings, mortar attacks. And endless incitement from the
official Palestinian media, whose TV kids' show features the song, "When I
wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber."

This cannot go on. No country can sustain what Israel is sustaining: one
massacre of Columbine proportions after another.

The diplomats prattle about how there is no military solution to this
conflict. Tell that to Yasser Arafat. He began this war a year ago after
rejecting Israel's offer of a Palestinian state with its capital in a
shared Jerusalem. Why? Because with this terror campaign he intends to
bring a bleeding, demoralized Israel to its knees, ready to surrender, the
way it surrendered last year to Hezbollah when Israel unilaterally
abandoned its Lebanese security zone in the face of guerrilla war.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is flailing about for a strategy. He has tried
three. After the disco bombing he did nothing, hoping that world sympathy
would bring outside pressure on Arafat to stop. Arafat's ensuing cease-fire
was as worthless as the 68 cease-fires he signed while terrorizing Lebanon
a quarter-century ago.

After the pizzeria massacre and cafe bombing, Sharon ordered brief,
entirely bloodless incursions into PLO territory. A momentary pinprick.

And finally, he has ordered the deliberate targeting of those directing the
terror campaign. But counterterrorism cannot stop the war. The war comes
from the top. The relative calm that Arafat imposes when cornered or
fearful, especially immediately after a terrorist attack, demonstrates (to
even the most naive) who is running the show.

There is only one way this war will stop. The scenario would go like this:

A lightning and massive Israeli attack on every element of Arafat's police
state infrastructure -- the headquarters and commanders of his eight(!)
security services, his police stations, weapons depots, training camps,
communications and propaganda facilities (radio, TV, government-controlled
newspapers) -- with a simultaneous attack on the headquarters and
leadership of Arafat's Hamas and Islamic Jihad allies.

Arafat has given Israel war; he will now receive it. He either flees (as he
did Jordan when trying to overthrow King Hussein in 1970) or is deported
back to Tunis (as he was from Lebanon in 1982).

Israel does not reoccupy Palestinian cities. Israeli troops stay only the
few days necessary to (1) begin building a wall of separation between
Palestinian and Israeli territory and (2) evacuate the more far-flung
Israeli settlements.

With a new border consolidated, Israel withdraws.

In the current bloodshed, not a single suicide bomber has come from Gaza.
Why? Because there already is a wall separating Gaza from Israel.
Palestinians have lobbed mortars over it, but it is difficult to send
suicide bombers through it. Such a wall built between the rest of Palestine
and Israel is the only way to ensure the reduction of violence that
everyone claims to want.

Strike and expel. Abandon settlements and consolidate lines. Build the
wall. And then? And then wait.

Wait for a Palestinian generation that will sign a peace treaty that it
intends to live by. That really accepts a Jewish state as its neighbor,
that really forswears violence. These are all explicit, written promises
given by Arafat at that lachrymose festival of deception and delusion, the
Oslo peace signing on the White House lawn in September 1993. He violated
every single one.

Israel might have to wait decades for a genuine "peace partner." When that
day comes, the wall comes down and the New Middle East dawns. But until
then, a lightning campaign to disarm the enemy and enforce separation is
the only way.

Will Sharon do it? I am doubtful. His government still depends on the very
Israeli left that trusted Arafat and brought Israel to its current crisis.
But if he won't, then the next government will. There is no other way for
Israel, short of national suicide.

The real question is: Will the Bush administration stand in the way of the
only way out? The signs are not good. When Israel responded to the pizzeria
massacre by taking over a few empty PLO buildings -- no injuries, no deaths
-- the State Department denounced this as an Israeli "escalation." Imagine
how panicked the State Department will be at the first sign of a "serious"
Israeli attack.

For America, stopping Israel would be foolishness in the extreme. We have
one overriding objective in the area: nonviolence. Washington has no idea
how to get there. Israel does.

We must allow Israel to defeat terrorism. If we do not, we are sentencing
the region to endless war -- and ourselves to endless crises.