[iwar] [fc:Israel.Says.It.Won't.'Pay.Price'.Of.Coalition]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-09-18 08:06:27


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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Israel.Says.It.Won't.'Pay.Price'.Of.Coalition]
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Washington Post
September 18, 2001
Israel Says It Won't 'Pay Price' Of Coalition
Sharon Refuses to Relent on Palestinians to Help U.S. Build Support Among
Arabs
By Lee Hockstader and Daniel Williams, Washington Post Foreign Service
JERUSALEM, Sept. 17 -- As it ushered Arab countries into a multinational
coalition against Iraq a decade ago, the first Bush administration persuaded
Israel to stay in the background, even to hold its fire when Iraq launched
Scud missiles at Tel Aviv.
Israel's current prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has made it clear that times
have changed. In a series of pugnacious pronouncements since the Sept. 11
attacks in the United States, he has insisted Israel will not sit quietly as
the current Bush administration seeks to build a coalition of Arab and
Islamic states against terrorism.
"It is inconceivable to grant [Yasser Arafat] legitimacy because someone
thinks that might facilitate the inclusion of Arab countries in this
coalition," Sharon told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, referring
to the Palestinian leader. "We will not pay the price for the establishment
of this coalition."
As it rages on, with both sides seeking to squeeze advantage from the
crisis, the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis may for several
reasons impair Washington's ability to assemble an anti-terrorism alliance
in the Middle East and beyond.
One difficulty is the U.S. backing for and identification with Israel. The
unswerving U.S. stand has long been condemned in the Arab world as unfair,
anti-Arab and anti-Islamic. Public opinion in the Arab and Muslim world has
been further influenced by months of televised images of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continue to air on Arab-language
satellite television.
That has been compounded by the Bush administration's reluctance to become
actively involved in efforts to quell the violence that has shaken the Gaza
Strip, the West Bank and Israel for a year. Several of the friendly Arab
governments to which Bush is now turning -- Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt
-- have been pleading for months for more involvement by Washington.
Foreign Minister Abdul-Illah Khatib of Jordan, for instance, said it will be
difficult for the Bush administration to line up Arab support without a
commitment to solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute once and for all.
"People will need to be convinced that Israel is not taking advantage" of
the situation to demonize the Palestinian cause by comparing it to
terrorism, Khatib said.
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt said today that the Israeli-Palestinian
standoff "may be one of the elements which encouraged" the terrorist
attacks. He said President Bush suggested to him in a telephone conversation
that the United States will be "very active" in trying to arrange a
cease-fire. "But what I'm seeing now is the Israeli government is seizing
the opportunity and launching attacks now and then," Mubarak said on "Larry
King Live." He added: "This will have terrible repercussions after that."
The United States, hoping to extinguish a fire that threatens the
anti-terrorism effort, has urged Sharon and Arafat to make every effort to
reach a cease-fire. But the two leaders have vastly different agendas, and
both have balked at fully satisfying U.S. requests to cool things off.
"For all sides, everything has changed," said a high-ranking Western source.
"The Palestinians simply have to decide which side they're going to be on --
are they going to tolerate the kind of support for terrorism that has
characterized the last year? And on the Israeli side, are they going to make
it easy for the Palestinians? Or are they going to insist that pressure be
kept up to such a level that [Arafat] can't climb down the tree even if he
wants to?"
Since the terrorist attacks in Washington and New York, fighting has
escalated here. Israel launched a fresh offensive, punching into
Palestinian-controlled territory and towns and establishing a new military
zone in the West Bank from which most Palestinians are excluded.
Sharon is eager to lump the Palestinians in with terrorists, discredit
Arafat and justify the assaults in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that have
killed at least 18 Palestinians in the past week. A real war on world
terrorism, Sharon has said, must include a war on Arafat.
In that spirit, Sharon refused last week to allow his foreign minister,
Shimon Peres, to meet with Arafat to negotiate a cease-fire, despite a
direct request from Bush in a phone call to Sharon on Friday. Sharon raised
the bar over the weekend, demanding that any cease-fire talks be preceded by
48 hours of complete quiet -- in effect, a pre-cease-fire cease-fire.
"If there was already a cease-fire you wouldn't need talks to discuss a
cease-fire," said an annoyed Western diplomat.
For Israeli hard-liners, the decision to hold back during the Persian Gulf
War in 1991 is a bitter memory. Many, including Sharon, believe that leaving
the war to the United States made Israel appear weak. Afterward, the United
States pushed a reluctant Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir into peace talks.
"Sharon doesn't want to open the door to a repeat situation where Israel
will be a passive actor in a coalition," said Gerald Steinberg, head of the
program on conflict management and negotiation at Israel's Bar Ilan
University. "The Americans don't understand the depth of Israeli views on
this."
Israelis, who have suffered dozens of casualties from terrorist attacks,
were convinced from the first day that they should be charter members of any
anti-terrorism coalition. They bristled at suggestions they should help cool
the conflict with the Palestinians to help Washington enlist Arab and
Islamic allies.
"Terrorist actions against Israeli citizens are no different from bin
Laden's terrorism against American citizens," Sharon told the Knesset,
Israel's parliament, today. "Terrorism is terrorism, and murder is murder."
Arafat, meanwhile, has drawn his own lessons from the Gulf War, when he took
the side of Iraq, the loser, and risked pariah status. He seems determined
not to repeat that choice. After months of tolerating or encouraging
terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, he is eager to show cooperation with
the United States and demonstrate that Sharon is the one responsible for
unbridled violence.
Although Bush has not phoned Arafat, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has
urged Arafat several times to defuse the clashes and resume talks with
Sharon's government. According to his close associates, fear is Arafat's
prime motivation in wanting to cooperate. If Washington identifies him with
the terrorist camp, it may embolden Sharon to launch an offensive to crush
the Palestinian Authority. For that reason, Palestinian officials said,
Arafat has dropped all preconditions for cease-fire talks with Peres,
insisting he is ready to meet "anywhere, anytime."
"We can make it through this with the United States. We can't make it if
left alone with Sharon," said Ahmed Abdul Rahman, Arafat's cabinet
secretary. "We are wise enough not to make war with America."
Shortly after news of last Tuesday's attacks reached Gaza, Arafat called an
urgent meeting of top political and military advisers to lay out a course of
action. He grimly informed the half-dozen officials and the head of his
combined security forces that he would immediately announce a pro-American
position, said an official who was present.
Because Arafat recognized that many Palestinians who are aggrieved by U.S.
support for Israel would show little sympathy for the United States, he
ordered police and political parties to suppress anti-American
demonstrations. Most dramatically, he warned leaders of militant Islamic
groups to launch no terror attacks in Israel. If they did, he pledged to
fight the groups ruthlessly, no matter how great the risk of internal
Palestinian violence.
"Arafat's position is desperate," said Marwan Kanafani, an adviser to and
spokesman for the Palestinian leader. "He is on a tightrope. His problem is
how to avoid to being a victim of all this."
However, acceding to U.S. demands for quiet has its limits, Kanafani said.
Arafat will not tell Palestinians to stand by and not fight in case of
continued Israeli invasions of its territory. "We are still victims,"
Kanafani said.
Arafat believes he also has something to contribute to U.S. diplomacy: a
Palestinian stamp of approval for the anti-terrorism coalition. If even the
Palestinians, who are distressed by U.S. political, financial and military
support of Israel, are willing to sign on, Arab leaders will find it easier
to do so.
Williams reported from the Gaza Strip. Correspondent Howard Schneider in
Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

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