No Propitiation
The rational ordering of the Middle East cannot be achieved by propitiating thugs and tyrants.

By NR Editors
From the April 8, 2002, issue of National Review

ust imagine that day after remorseless day Osama bin Laden were organizing suicide attacks against American targets. Just imagine that his propagandists were proclaiming that these attacks would stop only when bin Laden's demands were met in full. President Bush would have no trouble mobilizing the entire nation and employing whatever methods were required for self-defense.

Israel is in this predicament. Virtually every day, Yasser Arafat dispatches suicide bombers and gunmen to kill Israeli civilians, and in the Islamic mold he has taken to celebrating these fanaticized murderers as "heroic martyrs." Eighteen months ago he was offered peace on terms highly favorable to the Palestinians. Rejecting compromise, he has instead taken to the gun and the bomb, extending what has already been a 35-year career of murder and mayhem. Moreover, this strategy has paid off, because in one crunch after another the United States or the Europeans have lost their nerve, and pressured Israel to make concessions to Arafat, which he pockets without giving anything in return.

In the aftermath of September 11, the president recognized that the violence faced by Americans is like the violence faced by Israelis: Terror is one and indivisible. It was understood that the government of Ariel Sharon has no choice but to defend its citizens by whatever means are appropriate. These include large-scale military incursions into areas under Palestinian control, for the purpose of discovering arms caches and arresting, or even killing, whoever intends to use those arms. But as the next stage of the campaign against "the axis of evil" takes shape, the administration perceives a need to garner Arab support. At the expense of Israel, of course. So Gen. Zinni shuttles once more between the parties as though they were equivalent, and Bush announces that Israel's military measures are "not helpful."

How many times we have been here before, and how futilely! Once more, we are hastening to rescue Arafat from the consequences of his strategy of terror, rewarding instead of punishing. All he has to do in order to get what he wants, he may reasonably conclude, is double the number of suicide bombers. In which case, we shall all lose our nerve, pressure Israel into unconditional surrender, and Arafat's dream of a Palestine without Jews will come true. In addition, every Arab ruler is able to see for himself that the United States can be manipulated by violence into compromising its moral and political position. The rational ordering of the Middle East cannot be achieved by propitiating thugs and tyrants.