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Hegel sez think twice before cutting relations with Arafat
If there's no alternative to Arafat and the PLO, then there are no constraints on the Chairman and his Political Arm. He and they can do anything they want and we and the rest of the world have to let them get away with it, not necessarily because the alternative is worse, but because the alternative is unknown. "General" Afafat has succeeded in painting himself into a corner by acting on that assumption. Yasser is a one-track thinker, and that track is the one that's strewn with bombs and bullets. He thinks they got him where he is today (the position as a player in Middle Eastern politics, not the one where he's trapped in his office with Israeli tanks parked outside in every direction). If Arafat were to drop dead this afternoon of a stroke or heart attack, what would happen? The "unified" Palestinian areas would break down into factions. The hard boys among them would indulge in a period of shooting and blowing each other up as they jockeyed for position as Arafat's successor and, more important, for his place at the international money trough. There are indications that the Arabs expect Yasser to go down. In the current crisis, Arab leaders haven't been calling, writing, and badgering the USA. The crisis itself popped up because he couldn't control the factions - Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Aqsa, his own Tanzim, the PFLP, and other nut jobs. After Sharon described him as "irrelevant" there was discussion in the Beirut press over whether he was, and the concensus was that Sharon was correct. Then last week Hezbollah started to flex, for no particular reason. There is more brain power behind Hezbollah than there is behind Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They usually do things for a reason, yet here none was obvious. We should be seeing a Palestinian branch of Hezbollah, or an alliance between Hezbollah and one of the Palestinian factions fairly soon. So return to the assumption that Yasser keels over with a chicken bone in his throat. Hamas is probably the most powerful faction. Allied with them will be Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa. The three probably have interlocking directorates already. The PA cops will become a faction in themselves - already have, judging from the number the Israelis arrest. They may ultimately ally with the politicals - PFLP, DFLP, and Fatah. That puts Hizbollah in a balance of power position, as they're a hybrid political/religious group, with their backing from Shi'ite Iran rather than from Sunni Arabia. We can expect all of these factions to fight among themselves, with the internal alliances changing without warning (at least to us outsiders), while they attempt to keep fighting against Israel. But Yasser's departure would turn Palestinian attention self-destructively inward for anywhere from a year to 18 months before the next Chairman-for-Life arises. It could even result in a situation such as applied in Lebanon for long, long years, of total and tiresome anarchy. Israel won't be totally off the hook, but there are only so many suicide bombers to go around. Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-01-26 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=161 |