Daily WATCH! Volume 2 Issue 35, Monday,
February 18, 2002
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Arafat Playing The Desperation Card of Violence
By Randy Loudenslager
For 16 months Yassar Arafat has led the Palestinians in a campaign of violence against Israel they refer to as the Intifada. The use of violence by Arafat is not new and precedes the Intifada by decades. What is new about this latest escalation in violence by Palestinians (averaged 5 incidents of terror per day for the last several weeks and increased to 30 per day in the last week) is that it is taking on the appearance of an organized military campaign, something Israel feared would happen and planned for months ago.
The terror strikes against civilian targets continue, but what promotes fear of escalation by Israelis is the use of heavy weapons and direct attacks on Israeli military installations. Kassam-2 rockets have been launched against Israel, but so far have not inflicted the sting Arafat has hoped for. Up to now Israel has enjoyed the feeling of invulnerability when sending tanks into Palestinian areas to flush out terrorists, but this has changed considerably. Battle victory has come for the Palestinians when they detonated a sophisticated device that blew up an Israeli tank, killing two crew members and wounding a third. The detonation was powerful enough to blow the tank's turret off. These battle offenses are designed to inspire the Palestinians to rally in support of Arafat and lure the Israelis into overreacting in their response and thereby drawing international criticism and removing Arafat from the hot seat.
Israel has developed a strategy of measured responses and is unlikely to respond without self control. If Israel can remain quiet and maintain limited response to Arafat's desperate motives then he will have played his last card in vain. To be sure the Palestinians will step up the use of heavy weapons, all the while pointing at Israel as the offender. Israel may need to make a final decision as to Arafat's fate. Arafat, having seen this scenario develop, has publicly spoken of his martyrdom for the cause of Jerusalem. Israel has said that they are not trying to kill Arafat, although Prime Minister Ariel Sharon lamented publicly that they should have killed him long ago. Some Israelis fear that assassinating Arafat would increase the intensity of the uprising while others feel that the increasing intensity of the uprising will give Israel little choice.
Israel, for the present, did not get the diplomatic cut-off of Arafat from Washington they had hoped for. But if the new wave of violence increases further or is sustained for a long period then Washington will likely see Arafat as the sole obstacle to peace. Washington is asking Israel to show constraint so that her war on terror plans will not be undermined. Israel, anxious to deal with a new Palestinian leadership may not wait much longer for Washington, with her military under attack and some Israeli soldiers refusing to enter Palestinian areas, the military's morale is at stake and making it a higher priority than what Washington wants.
America is giving Arafat one more chance
to control his people. Arafat is gambling this chance by trying
to provoke Israel to go too far. This all serves Israel's desperation
for peace. Desperate people and desperate nations are blind to
what is best, soon Israel will sink into the darkness of the delusion
that a permanent peace can be found by forsaking her covenant
with God when she gives up her inheritance on the bargaining table.
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