Death as a Way of Life

International Intervention, Please

June 2001

On June 1, 2001, after a particularly bloody period of constant terrorist attacks on Israelis inside Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza, a suicide bomber detonated himself in the middle of a large crowd of young Israelis outside a discotheque on the Tel Aviv beach. Most of the victims were Russian emigrants, many of them teenage girls. Under immense international pressure and a cry for restraint on both sides, Arafat publicly condemned the attack and promised to control his militias. The Israeli government threatened that if there were not an immediate end to terror, harsher military measures would be taken against the Palestinians.

Twenty-one boys and girls were murdered yesterday in a suicide attack committed by a Palestinian at a discotheque in Tel Aviv. Dozens more were seriously injured. Boys and girls of fourteen or slightly older. Two of them were sisters. None of them was a soldier. They bore no arms. They were children who had come to a birthday party.

This time the bomb was especially evil — besides the explosives, it contained hundreds of heavy ball bearings. Their effect on a human body is terrifying. Yesterday, when the attack was reported in the media, Palestinians went out into the streets of their cities and fired their rifles in the air to celebrate. Even in terms of the cruel dosages of violence that we have become accustomed to in recent years, this attack crossed a boundary. The international community seems to be beginning to comprehend the depth of the hatred and despair among both peoples, and their inability to free themselves from the trap they have so foolishly entered.

It seems to me that it is difficult today to argue against Israel’s right to defend itself by retaliating against the Palestinian Authority. There is no government in the world that would hold itself back after the incessant cruel and deadly attacks in the last ten days. And yet, with all due understanding of the anger and urge for revenge that have seized the Israeli people, we need to say: Force will not resolve the severe crisis between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The two sides have been drawing each other’s blood for almost a hundred years. Tens of thousands have already lost their lives. Yet the Arabs have not succeeded in destroying Israel, and Israel has not succeeded in cementing its occupation by force. These truths apply today as well, perhaps even more pointedly than before: perhaps the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will have no political solution, either, without intense pressure from the international community. The two sides simply are not able today to return to a psychological state in which they can begin a movement toward compromise and conciliation. The darkest days of the Jewish-Arab conflict have not seen such polarized positions, so saturated with hatred and suspicion, as we see today.

It may well be that Arafat has lost control of his people. That is a frightening possibility, and recent events require us to discuss it seriously. I’d submit that even if it is true, no one ought to be too pleased about it, definitely not the Israelis. A crumbling Palestinian Authority, fired up because of what it sees as the “achievements” of terror — especially a Palestinian Authority that has surrendered to Hamas and Islamic Jihad — may bring a horrible catastrophe on itself, on Israel, and on the entire region.

Still, it may well be that Arafat did not order his men to prevent the recent terrorist attacks because he knew he would not be obeyed. If this hypothesis is true, it means that his declaration of a cease-fire this morning has no validity — just like dozens of his similar announcements in the past.

Arafat is now paying the price of flirting with terror. In recent years he has, time after time, released from his prisons Hamas terrorists who have committed attacks against Israel. He has done so to pressure Israel. For years he has been riding on the tiger’s back — that’s the local cliché—and now the tiger has thrown him off and confronts him.

Of course, Israel cannot be absolved of responsibility for Arafat’s weakened position. For years Israel has done everything — even during the negotiations after the Oslo Accords — to strengthen its grip on the occupied territories. The Palestinians watched as Arafat was forced to make ever-greater concessions, while the Israeli settlements grew before their eyes and many Israeli roads were paved through the territory promised to the Palestinians. It is clear that this has strengthened the position of the extremists, at the expense of Arafat and of peace.

Here is the essence of the tragedy: two peoples whose extended struggle has distorted their ability to act in a measured way and save themselves from themselves. Today, with eyes wide open — but perhaps blinded by hatred and fear — they are marching toward a terrifying confrontation.

The only thing that can prevent this horrible fate is swift international intervention. This can begin by immediately convening a summit, in the region itself, an emergency conference of the European Union’s heads of government, the UN Secretary-General, the leaders of those Arab countries that have an interest in putting out this fire, and a senior representative of the President of the United States. Afterward, international forces should be sent to the region to create an impermeable barrier between Israel and Palestine. Concurrently, negotiations should be imposed on the two sides, based on the understandings reached at Taba five months ago. This is apparently the only way that they will make the painful compromises that they are unable to make on their own. All those who see themselves as friends of Israel or of the Palestinians cannot stand aside, at a time when the two peoples are preparing for what may be the beginning of a long war.