Author: Charles Krauthammer
Publication: The Washington Post
Date: June 18, 2004
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50910-2004Jun17.html
While no one was looking, something
historic happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over,
and the Palestinians have lost.
For Israel, the victory is bitter.
The past four years of terrorism have killed almost 1,000 Israelis and
maimed thousands of others. But Israel has won strategically. The intent
of the intifada 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 intifada, but tourists are returning.
And the Israelis were never demoralized. They kept living their lives,
the young people in particular returning to cafes and discos and buses
just hours after a horrific bombing. Israelis turned out to be a lot tougher
and braver than the Palestinians had imagined.
The end of the intifada does not
mean the end of terrorism. There was terrorism before the intifada 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. At the height of the intifada, there were nine suicide
attacks in Israel killing 85 Israelis in just one month (March 2002). In
the past three months there have been none.
The overall level of violence has
been reduced by more than 70 percent. 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.
The northern part is already complete, and attacks in northern Israel have
dwindled to almost nothing.
This success does not just save
innocent lives; it changes the strategic equation of the whole conflict.
Yasser Arafat started the intifada
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.
Even more important, they have lost
their place at the table. Israel is now defining a new equilibrium that
will reign for years to come -- the separation fence is unilaterally drawing
the line that separates Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians were
offered the chance to negotiate that frontier at Camp David and chose war
instead. Now they are paying the price.
It stands to reason. It is the height
of absurdity to launch a terrorist war against Israel, then demand the
right to determine the nature and route of the barrier built to prevent
that very terrorism.
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.
Once Israel has withdrawn from Gaza and has completed the fence, terrorism
as a strategic option will be effectively dead. 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.
It could be a year, five years or
a generation until the Palestinians come to that realization. The pity
is that so many, Arab and Israeli, will have had to die before then.
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