F L A M E : Oslo and Arafat—Ten Years Later: Has it brought us closer to peace in the Middle East?

“What to do with Arafat?
The answer is to put him on trial, just as Adolf Eichman and Slobodan Milosevic were put on trial for the atrocities that they had committed.”

Oslo and Arafat—Ten Years
Has it brought us closer to peace in the Middle East?

Almost exactly ten years ago, Yitzchak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel, and Yasser Arafat, then as now the leader of the “Palestinians,” shook hands on the White House lawn. They were joined by a beaming President Clinton, who had been instrumental in bringing this “Oslo Accord” about. The world, and certainly most Israelis and most of the world’s Jews, were delighted. After almost 100 years of continuous strife, peace between Arabs and Jews seemed to be finally at hand.

What are the facts?

Treachery from the beginning. For their efforts, Arafat, Rabin and also Shimon Peres, then foreign minister of Israel and one of the architects of the Oslo Accord, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In retrospect, it seems almost unbelievable that a thug, a liar, and a murderer like Arafat could have received that prize.

The treachery of Arafat became apparent almost immediately. One of the obligations that he had undertaken was to immediately stop all violence, and to assure that the state of Israel could live in peace and security. Just a few days later, however, a twenty-two year old Israeli was knifed to death. He was only the first of over 1,000 Israelis, who would be shot, knifed, or torn to pieces and thousands wounded and traumatized for life by “Palestinian” terror.

Instead of bringing about a reconciliation, an end to the centuries-old conflict, the Oslo Accord succeeded in exacerbating it and to bring it to a bloody culmination. Regrettably, the Israelis did everything they could to empower the “Palestinians.” They allowed them to arm themselves, though only with light weapons. But short of tanks, advanced missiles and warplanes, the “Palestinians” now have almost every conceivable weapon. Most of those weapons were smuggled in through tunnels into Gaza, with the Egyptians turning a blind eye. Only a few months ago, the Israelis intercepted the KARINE-A, a vessel loaded with 50 tons of advanced weaponry.

Author of many crimes. Arafat promised in the Oslo Accord to rescind the clauses in the “Palestinian Covenant” that call for the destruction of Israel. But he never did that, of course. The destruction of Israel, by one means or another, remains the supreme goal of the PLO.

In waging war against Israel, Arafat has brought untold misery to his people. Unemployment in the territories is over 50 percent; there’s no commerce or industry; and the tens of thousands who had good jobs in Israel are now idle and cannot feed their families. There would now be mass starvation in “Palestine” were it not for the regular relief remittances from the governments of the world, most of them of course from the United States.

Very few people have any longer any faith in Arafat. Even the most sanguine have come to realize that he is a terrorist and an inveterate liar. For years he told the West about his peaceful intentions, but when speaking to his own people or to other Arabs he incessantly advocates “jihad”—total war against the Jews and the recovery of “Palestine from the river to the sea.” That means the elimination of Israel.

Arafat’s greatest crime must surely be the poisoning of the minds of two generations of Arab children. From the very first grade they learn to hate the Jews and to prepare themselves for martyrdom, preferably by blowing themselves up and killing as many Jews as possible.
But the sabotage of the Oslo Accord is only a small part of Arafat’s villainy. He is personally responsible for thousands of terror attacks over the last six decades, including the killing of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics; the hijacking and blowing up of airliners filled with civilians; kidnapping and killing of Americans, including American diplomats; destabilizing Jordan; the effective destruction of Lebanon, and much more.

What to do with such a man? President Bush has finally recognized Arafat for what he is, though, inexplicably, he is still the darling of many European governments. The Israelis have kept him holed up for many months—he is out of circulation, and they have declared him to be irrelevant. But he is not, of course. From his lair, he is still in control, in contact with his minions, and he still calls all the shots. The Israelis have floated the idea of killing him or of exiling him. Both would be counter-productive. Killing him would make him a martyr. Exiling him would not prevent him from doing his mischief from every corner of the world. No, the answer is to take him prisoner and to put him on trial—just as the arch criminals Adolf Eichman and Slobodan Milosevic were put on trial for the atrocities that they had committed.

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