France's foreign policy remains impervious to arguments by
Jews and pro-Israel supporters that France's blind support
for Arafat, who stands behind Palestinians terror and thwarts
all order among Palestinians, is fanning the flames of Arab
antisemitism in French suburbs. President Chirac himself
admitted Arafat interferes with attempts to achieve order but
says nothing can be done without him.
Interior Minister de Villepin instructed provincial
commissioners to leave behind their indifference to
antisemitism and to mobilize forces to stop those who assault
Jews. But he allows the antisemitic party Euro Palestine to
hold provocative gatherings in suburbs where Jews live,
inciting Arabs to attack "racist Israel" and the Jews who
support it.
According to Jewish organizations the Foreign Minister's
decision to visit Arafat on his most recent trip to Israel
and instead of the heads of the Israeli government,
demonstrates that from the French government's standpoint
Israel has no right to exist of its own, but only through
Arafat. The French do not dare to send the Foreign Minister
only to Israel without passing through Ramallah to receive a
stamp of approval. Arafat still serves as a means for French
policy to oppose the Bush Administration's policy on
Israel.
According to Le Monde France alone "does not surrender
to Israeli dictates to isolate Arafat." German Foreign
Minister Joschka Fisher and the Spanish Foreign Minister both
visited Israel without paying visits to Arafat.
In My Life former U.S. president Bill Clinton
describes Arafat at Camp David as someone who did not have
control over his feelings, was confused and could not grasp
facts. The French claim the isolation policy has not reduced
his power. He is physically and politically isolated, but
Sharon needs him, even to implement his Gaza disengagement
plan.
On the other hand American newspaper columnists have
concluded the intifadah has reached an end despite Arafat and
the Hamas. To them Arafat is merely a card for the Europeans
to play to keep Israel and the Bush Administration from
achieving order.
"The Palestinian intifadah is over, and the Palestinians have
lost," writes Charles Krauthammer in the Wall Street
Journal. "The intent of the intifadah was to demoralize
Israel, destroy its economy, bring it to its knees, and thus
force it to withdraw and surrender to Palestinian demands,
just as Israel withdrew in defeat from southern Lebanon in
May 2000.
"That did not happen. Israel's economy was certainly wounded,
but it is growing again. Tourism had dwindled to almost
nothing at the height of the intifadah, but tourists are
returning.
"The end of the intifadah does not mean the end of terrorism.
There was terrorism before the intifadah and there will be
terrorism to come. What has happened, however, is an end to
systematic, regular, debilitating, unstoppable terror --
terror as a reliable weapon . . .
"How did Israel do it? By ignoring its critics and launching
a two-pronged campaign of self-defense. First, Israel
targeted terrorist leaders -- attacks so hypocritically
denounced by Westerners who, at the same time, cheer the hunt
for, and demand the head of, Osama bin Laden. The top echelon
of Hamas and other terrorist groups has been either arrested,
killed or driven underground.
"The others are now so afraid of Israeli precision and
intelligence -- the last Hamas operative to be killed by
missile was riding a motorcycle -- that they are forced to
devote much of their time and energy to self-protection and
concealment.
"Second, the fence. Only about a quarter of the separation
fence has been built, but its effect is unmistakable.
"This success does not just save innocent lives; it changes
the strategic equation of the whole conflict.
"Yasser Arafat started the intifadah in September 2000, just
weeks after he had rejected, at Camp David, Israel's offer of
withdrawal, settlement evacuation, sharing of Jerusalem and
establishment of a Palestinian state. Arafat wanted all that,
of course, but without having to make peace and recognize a
Jewish state. Hence the terror campaign -- to force Israel to
give it all up unilaterally.
"Arafat failed, spectacularly. The violence did not bring
Israel to its knees. Instead, it created chaos, lawlessness
and economic disaster in the Palestinian areas. The
Palestinians know the ruin that Arafat has brought, and they
are beginning to protest it. He promised them blood and
victory; he delivered on the blood.
"These new strategic realities are not just creating a new
equilibrium, they are creating the first hope for peace since
Arafat officially tore up the Oslo accords four years ago . .
. The only way for the Palestinians to achieve statehood and
dignity, and to determine the contours of their own state,
will be to negotiate a final peace based on genuine
coexistence with a Jewish state."
