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One can only feel sorry for the American, Russian, European and United Nations’ diplomats of the «quartet.» Their task is unenviable: to offer, on a silver platter and for the umpteenth time, a sovereign state to a people who have been rejecting it again and again.

Understandably, they have to become more creative each time. Now they are talking about a «provisional state» (whatever that means) and full independence by 2005. I wish them luck but also remind them of a few historical facts that might help them better understand the roots of Palestinian rejectionism and thus articulate realistic policy options.

In 1959 Yasser Arafat and other revolutionaries founded Fatah. In 1964 then-Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser established the Palestine Liberation Organization. Both organizations set the «liberation of Palestine» as their strategic goals. This took place before a single Israeli soldier set foot in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, before a single settlement had been built in «occupied territory,» before the Israelis began to «humiliate» and «oppress» Palestinian workers at checkpoints, and at a time when Jerusalem was in Arab hands (under Jordanian rule).

In other words, Israel had committed no sin yet. The Jews were living in «Israel proper,» this side of the Green Line. The «Palestine» that Fatah and the PLO wanted to liberate was not the area including Jenin or Nablus but that containing Haifa and Eilat — namely, the Jewish state. They wanted, and still want, Palestine from the river to the sea — a purpose that they codified in the most important documents of their national movement and that the PLO and the Palestinian Authority proclaimed, in Arabic, throughout most of the 1990s.

This fundamental rejection of Israel crosses many borders in the Middle East. In Ramallah and Beirut, people celebrate whenever Jewish blood is spilled. In Dubai and Damascus, they burn Israeli flags. In Cairo and Tripoli, they accuse the Jews of conspiracy theories. In Baghdad and Teheran, they stockpile weapons of mass destruction for what could be described as their ideal Arab solution to the Jewish problem. Indeed, Arab hostility to Israel is so visceral that during the past century Arab nations sided with the most fanatical enemies of the Jews (and mankind): German Nazism and Russian communism.

And yet, there is room for measured optimism. Two of the 22-member Arab League have peace treaties with Israel. That is not much, nor quite encouraging for a 50-year experience. But it is something. In particular, Egypt’s «cold peace» format offers a workable, if disappointing, model of relations.

Hosni Mubarak’s regime maintains alive the flame of anti-Semitism in the country’s controlled media; it repeatedly blocks Israeli attempts at economic, scientific or cultural cooperation; and it promotes policies of political isolation of the Jewish state in international fora.

But Egypt has adhered to the peace agreement’s military clauses, keeping its borders with Israel free of aggression for more than two decades. In fact, the peace treaty has been successfully tested in the past: when Israel bombed Iraq’s atomic reactor in Osirak in 1981, when it entered Lebanon and expelled the PLO in 1982, during the Gulf War in 1991, and during the current and previous intifada.

More than at peace, Israel and Egypt enjoy a state of no war, which — in the context of an Arab Middle East where Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a best-seller — marks quite an achievement. This kind of «peace» does not realize the optimistic dreams of regional integration, but it does provide Israelis with physical security. This isn’t a warm, harmonious peace; it’s cold and imperfect but achievable.

So perhaps negotiators need the right thermometer that would allow them to measure the exact temperature of the viable peace. A warm peace, the kind found between Sweden and Norway, is impossible to have today in this chaotic Middle East. Egypt’s cold peace might emerge as the only realistic way of coexistence between Arab and Jew.

It is up to the diplomatic geniuses of the «quartet» to figure out how to make it happen between Palestinian and Israeli.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.

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We know the cycle. First comes the Arab provocation, followed by Israeli inaction. The international media ignore the event. Then, Arab pressure mounts, prompting an Israeli retaliatory measure that triggers headlines from Lima to Beijing. The Arab world is furious, mass hysteria reigns in Europe, the United Nations calls emergency sessions to discuss Israel’s aggression, and the United States — in an impossible effort to try to please everyone –jumps in with an «evenhanded» statement calling all the parties to exercise restraint. And so it goes until another crisis erupts.

The current one involves a water dispute between Lebanon and Israel that by now may have turned into a countdown to war. These countries have no diplomatic relations and technically are in a state of war. Lebanon hosts Hezbollah, a radical Shiite group that has attacked Israelis in the past. Israel occupied south Lebanon for nearly two decades. Under such a tense atmosphere, almost any minor issue has the potential of becoming a major confrontation. This is especially so when, as in this case, water is at the center of the conflict.

Nations have fought for water in the past in the Middle East, and in particular, the 1967 War resulted in part from a Syrian-Lebanese scheme to divert the Jordan River. After Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon, the Lebanese have tried twice to alter the water status quo, regulated by unwritten understandings dating back to the 1920s. Israel protested Lebanon’s conduct but took no military action. Now Lebanon has begun a diversion water project from the Wazzani River, a tributary of the Jordan River, which in turn flows into the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) — Israel’s primary water reservoir.

Water experts observe that such action will have a direct impact on the quantity and quality of available water in Israel. First, any amount of water diverted from rivers that feed Israeli lakes will result in a reduction of available water. Second, by reducing the quantity of sweet water that reaches the Sea of Galilee, its level of salinity inevitably will increase, something that could «permanently endanger the entire Kinneret as a viable source of sweet water,» according to Martin Sherman, author of The Politics of Water in the Middle East.

Importing water

With a per-capita supply five times smaller than Lebanon’s, Israel is facing a severe water shortage. In recent years, Israel has had to cut the allotted water supplies to agriculture, and it has been unable to transfer the water quotas to Jordan that the peace treaty between these two nations mandate. Last month Israel signed a treaty with Turkey to import water to meet its national needs. Lebanese authorities, of course, know this reality all too well.

Beirut attempts to justify its unilateral decision alleging that Israel stole water from southern Lebanon rivers during the occupation years (untrue) and arguing that the water demand in the south has increased since many nationals moved there after Israel’s withdrawal. Even if the latter point were true, Lebanon could satisfy that demand by taking water from other sources that would not affect Israel’s water supply, such as the Litani River, which flows into the Mediterranean Sea. As Lt. Col. Gal Luft (IDF, res.) points out, the fact that Lebanon is not pursuing the Litani River option indicates that political, rather than welfare, considerations are behind its Wazzani project.

Perhaps arriving at the same conclusion, Washington has threatened Beirut to cut a pledged $35 million aid package if the Lebanese don’t show some flexibility. But, wary of the repercussions that an Israeli military action on Lebanon water facilities might have on an impending U.S. attack on Iraq, the Bush administration has been exerting pressure on the Sharon government, too.

Resort to force?

Forty percent of Israel’s water resources is in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), where the Palestinians want to establish their state. Another 30 percent of Israel’s water resources is in the Golan Heights, claimed by Syria. Lebanon is already diverting water from a major tributary to rivers that stream to Israel.

While Lebanon has a right to take water from rivers that run through its territory, Israel also has the right to respond militarily to what can be termed a casus belli. Unless U.S. diplomatic mediation succeeds, Israel will have to resort to force to protect its water supplies.

At that point, expect the headlines – naturally.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.

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The paramount features of Palestinian victimhood are its refugee status and its identity as a people living under occupation. Amazingly, the father of the Palestinian revolution has suffered neither: Yasser Arafat has never been a refugee nor has he ever lived under Israeli occupation (except during the last few months). In fact, he isn’t even a Palestinian.

Arafat’s given name is Abd el-Rahman Abd el-Rauf Arafat el-Qudwa el-Huseini. He was born in Cairo on Aug. 24, 1929. (Aware of the power of symbolism and legitimacy in Arab culture, he claims to have been born in Jerusalem, but many of his biographers disagree.)

Together with university friends, Arafat founded Fatah during the late 1950s. His association with the Muslim Brotherhood — a radical Islamic movement birthed in Egypt in early 20th Century — as well as his involvement in Fatah’s «military operations» earned him incarceration in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria in the 1950s and 1960s. Fatah joined the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1968, and the following year Arafat became its chairman, a position he still holds today.

During his tenure, the PLO was expelled from Jordan (1970) and Lebanon (1982), and it would have been thrown into exile once more — this time from Israel (2002) — were it not for the pressure that the international community exerted upon Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The Palestinians were massacred by the Jordanians in 1970, by the Christian Falangists in 1982 and by the Amal Muslim Shi’ites in 1985. They were evicted from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in 1991 — all as a result of their leader’s mistakes.

By the early 1990s, Palestinians in the territories were still under Israeli rule, and most of the Palestinians in the diaspora were still confined to miserable camps; Arafat’s PLO had not «liberated» one inch of historic Palestine after three decades of struggle.

Then came Oslo: a political life-vest thrown by the Israelis to a sinking revolutionary organization. Arafat quickly embraced it, and he was almost instantly rehabilitated — from bloody terrorist to statesman of international stature. He was given land and power (which came as a result of Israel’s political miscalculation more than Arafat’s own merit). Like an inverted Midas, everything that the Palestinian revolutionary touched became cursed. The 8-year experiment in Palestinian self-government confirmed this reality.

In the late 1980s, according to historian Efraim Karsh, after decades of Israeli administration leading up to the intifada, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were the fourth fastest growing economy in the world, ahead of Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and even Israel. But the first intifada, the peace process, Palestinian autonomy and the latest intifada have drastically reversed the trend. «He promised he would build a Singapore in Palestine. Instead he delivered a Somalia,» complained one Palestinian.

In reality, Arafat’s real successes were in the realm of public relations. His pinnacle moments of glory included appearing on the cover of Time (1968), addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York (1974), shaking hands with the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the White House (1993), and being awarded the Nobel Peace prize (1994).

No less significant, however, has been the impressive size of PLO assets and the chairman’s deft management of the organization’s finances. According to estimates by the CIA and the British National Criminal Intelligence Service, the value of PLO assets in the early 1990s varied between $10 billion and $14 billion. In 2000, Israeli intelligence put the figure at around $20 billion.

If we were to rank the PLO among the companies listed in the Fortune 500, we would be astonished to learn that PLO assets of the early 1990s today would place it above those of Kellogg’s, Continental Airlines, Nike, Colgate-Palmolive and Apple Computer. As if this vast organizational wealth were not sufficient, Arafat also has been showered with American, European and Japanese money since the beginning of the peace process. Yet, not one single Palestinian refugee’s life has improved as a result.

Indefatigable fighter, despised terrorist, eternal revolutionary, small dictator, respected Nobel laureate, failed statesman, celebrated media personality and savvy financial manager, Arafat is all and nothing at the same time. In the final analysis, he is a leader who failed his people on most counts; a seller of broken dreams. He is a man whom — as veteran journalist Oriana Fallaci wrote in the 1970s — history eventually will reduce to his true proportions.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.

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Spain legitimately prides itself in the cultural richness it inherited from the Muslims of past centuries. Today it enjoys excellent relations with both the Islamic and Arab worlds and is highly involved in Mideast affairs. The European Unions special envoy to the Middle East, Miguel Angel Moratinos, is a Spaniard. So is Javier Solana, NATOs former secretary-general, a man deeply engaged in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

Systematically, Spain and its media side with the Palestinians and the Arabs in their war against the Jewish state, accusing Israel of being colonialist and expansionist, as well as of using excessive force in its retaliations.

It is consequently bizarre to witness Spains handling of its own conflict with Morocco, a member-state of both the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. These two countries have a dispute over a few colonial outposts, namely the areas of Melilla and Ceuta and an islet called Isla del Perejil by Spaniards and Leila Islands by Moroccans.

On July 11, members of the Royal Moroccan Gendarmery disembarked on the islet and planted their country’s flag. The islet had been under Portuguese rule since 1415, and under Spanish control since 1688. During the following centuries, Spain, Morocco and Great Britain squabbled over the tiny, rocky island. In 1956, Morocco gained independence and claimed that the islet belonged to it.

With the territorial dispute still unresolved, in 1960 Morocco and Spain agreed that neither country would establish a permanent presence there. Morocco violated that bilateral agreement in July, and Spain — after exhausting the diplomatic channel in a mere six days — responded with military force. On July 17, Spanish commandos backed by four naval vessels and six helicopters retook the island inhabited only by wild goats.

«Spain was attacked by force in a very sensitive part of its geography,» said Spanish Minister of Defense Federico Trillo. «In military terms, we are talking about a clear act of legitimate defense.» Thats true, but it bears noting that the islet is at a safe distance from the coast of Spain.

No Moroccan «Fatah Brigade» or Moroccan «Islamic Jihad» operated there. No mortar shell was ever fired from Perejil against Barcelona. No massacre against pizza-goers in Madrid was ever planned on the islets soil. There werent even children throwing stones against the «soldiers of the Spanish occupation.» And yet, Spain, which so often chastises Israel for its conduct when facing these dangers, invaded and evicted an «enemy» that posed no considerable threat. On July 20, Spain and Morocco resolved their ridiculous confrontation; the 75 Spanish soldiers who had been stationed there during the conflict began to leave.

Some commentators labeled the Perejil comedy/affair a «miniature war» and a «microcosm of the clash of civilizations,» given that NATO and the EU sided with Spain whereas the Arab League and the Islamic world supported Morocco. However small the facts on the ground, and however microscopic their consequences, the accompanying hypocrisy has been mammoth.

A more-telling case of Spanish diplomatic duplicity can be found in its conflict with Great Britain over the Rock of Gibraltar. This strategically located island has been under British control since 1704. The 30,000 Gibraltarians, mostly descendants of Mediterranean immigrants, favor British rule. They have a parliament, political parties and an elected leader.

Nonetheless, Spain haggles over control of air traffic to Gibraltars airport and over the islands international phone code. Vehicles crossing into Spain are held at the border for hours. The Tony Blair administration seems willing to cede sovereignty over Gibraltar to Spain, which Gibraltarians oppose, calling the initiative » a gratuitous betrayal of our political rights and legitimate aspirations as a people.»

The Gibraltarians are calling for a referendum on the final deal between Great Britain and Spain. The Jose Maria Aznar administration rejected the idea and stated that the nationalist aspirations of the Gibraltarians would not be honored.
So the Spaniards are keeping Gibraltarians waiting for hours at border checkpoints and denying them the right of self-determination. It looks like collective humiliation and oppression. Sounds familiar?

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.

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Undoubtedly one of the most fascinating characters Israel has ever produced, Shimon Peres, may be the single most recognized and internationally acclaimed Israeli leader.

Born in Poland in 1923, Peres immigrated as a child, with his family, to Palestine, where he would become one of the founders of Kibbutz Alumot in the Jordan Valley. A David Ben-Gurion protégé, Peres has had an impressive run in Israeli politics.

In 1948 Peres was appointed head of naval services, and in 1959 he became a member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. During a political career spanning more than five decades, he has been minister of Immigrant Absorption, Transport and Communications, Information, Defense, Finance and Foreign Affairs — and prime minister (upon the death of Yitzhak Rabin). He was vice president of the Socialist International and is a Nobel laureate.

All of which is amazing, when one considers that Peres has lost every national election in which he has participated, both for prime minister and for president. These failures notwithstanding, his contributions to the state are legendary. Together with Ariel Sharon, he belongs to the generation of great statesmen that includes Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Menachem Begin.

But in the early 1990s, Peres had an idea — or, more accurately, a vision ~ that would cast the die leading to his own demise. In his book (aptly called) The New Middle East, Peres presented his view of Israel and its Arab neighbors closely intertwined in economic and bona fide political relations that would result in «visions of happiness and beauty, fife and peace,» as he so candidly put it.

Speaking to an audience in Paris in 1993, Peres said: «We envision a new Middle East where the skies will be free of missiles, the ground free of deserts, the water free of salt, its peoples free of violence and its children free of ignorance.» He became a strong advocate of Palestinian statehood and Israeli land withdrawal. To an audience in New York, Peres once said: «A successful Palestinian state is the greatest promise for peace and understanding. We want Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian farmers to work together, cultivating the land.»

Predictably, Peres’s rosy world view elicited ridicule, particularly in Israel. His political nemesis, Benjamin Netanyahu once referred condescendingly to his dovish counterpart as «Israel’s first astronaut.» Some of his critics called him hopelessly nave, but others saw him as a visionary ahead of his time. In fact, some of his speeches have had almost prophetic overtones. Even after the current murderous intifada erupted, Peres proclaimed: «We are at a watershed. Our region is going through a period of transition. The dark days are at an end, the shadows of its path are lengthening. The twilight of wars is still red with blood, yet its sunset is inevitable and imminent.» These could have been the words of Isaiah anticipating a future messianic age, as columnist Charles Krauthammer observed.

A man of the future Peres is. «I am bored with history,» he is fond of saying. Nothing could deter him; no one could rob him of his dream of a paradisiacal Middle East. Thus, Yasser Arafat’s endless calls for jihad, and green lights to terror during the days of the peace process, prompted hardly a peep from Peres. The New Middle East was translated into Arabic and distributed all over the region by the official Egyptian newspaper/publisher Al-Ahram, with an added introduction claiming that the book was a «Zionist plot.» Peres looked the other way.

In 1999, Hilal Khashan conducted a most comprehensive poll concerning Arab attitudes toward Israel, querying 1,600 Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians and Palestinians. More than 75 percent said that Peres was not interested in peace. Imperturbable, Peres went on with his dream.

It is sad to see a man who strives for peace rejected again and again. Even his enlightened European peers have abandoned him. In Belgium the legal committee of the Brussels parliament wants to prosecute him as a mass murderer, and in Sweden some citizens want the Nobel committee to strip Peres (not Arafat) of his prize.

Peres’s vision lies in tatters. His is not just the collapse of a political leader but the epic fall of a failed modern-day prophet. The Oslo fallacy, as with all false prophecies, has brought ruin upon both the prophet and his followers.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.

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Forty years ago last week, SS-Oberstumbannfuehrer Adolf Eichmann was executed in Israel. He had been arrested at the end of World War II and confined to an American internment camp, but he managed to escape to Argentina. He lived there for 10 years under the name Ricardo Klement until Israeli secret agents abducted him in 1960 and spirited him to Israel.

Eight months after his trial opened in Jerusalem, Eichmann was found guilty of crimes against humanity and the Jewish people and was sentenced to death. He was executed on May 31, 1962; his remains were cremated and the ashes scattered over the Mediterranean Sea — outside Israeli waters. This is the only case in which the death penalty has been carried out in Israel.

Eichmann’s record is notorious. He was the head of the Department for Jewish Affairs in the Gestapo from 1941 to 1945 and was chief of operations in sending three million Jews to the extermination camps. After the war, he became one of the most sought-out Nazi fugitives.

The international community condemned Israel’s kidnapping of Eichmann, but it was nonetheless able to see the justice in, and legitimacy of, Israel’s action. The trial itself, marked by strict adherence to legal procedure, elicited worldwide admiration, and the Nazi’s execution was seen everywhere as a crucial vindication in the post-Holocaust era.

Everywhere, that is, but in the Arab world. There, Eichmann’s capture, trial and execution were condemned, and Eichmann was venerated as a «martyr.» The Jordanian daily A-Ra’ ai praised him for exterminating «members of the race of dogs and monkeys.» The Saudi periodical Al-Bilar saluted him for his courage. The Lebanese newspaper Al-Anwar published a cartoon lamenting the fact that the Nazi officer had not killed more Jews.

But let us view this Arab beatification of Eichmann in its proper historical context.

When Hitler took power in 1933, telegrams of congratulations were dispatched from Arab capitals. In 1937, Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels praised the Arabs’ «national and racial conscience,» noting that «Nazi flags fly in Palestine and they adorn their houses with Swastikas and portraits of Hitler.» In 1943, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, spoke highly of the » natural alliance that exists between the National-Socialism of Great Germany and the freedom-loving Muslims of the world.»

Historical inversion

Pro-German parties and youth movements attuned to the trappings of National-Socialism sprouted in Syria, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. Even Nazi slogans were translated into Arabic. A Mideast song popular in the late 1930s crooned: «No more Monsieur, no more Mister. In Heaven Allah, on Earth Hitler.» The Fuehrer himself was even Islamicized under the new name of Abu Ali.

Love of Nazism spread like wildfire in the region. Among the many Nazi sympathizers at the time were Haj Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and president of the Arab Higher Committee; Ahmed Shukairi, first chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization; Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, who became presidents of Egypt; Islamic fundamentalist leaders; and the founders of the Pan-Arab socialist Ba’ath party, currently ruling Syria and Iraq. (One Ba’ath leader proudly recounted: «We were racists, admiring Nazism, reading their books and sources of their thought. We were the first who thought of translating Mein Kampf»).

Praise for Hitler among Arabs did not vanish after the war. In 1965, a Moroccan commentator on Middle East affairs wrote this in the French magazine Les Temps Modernes: «A Hitlerian myth is being cultivated on a popular level. Hitler’s massacre of the Jews is eulogized. It is even believed that Hitler did not die. His arrival is longed for.»

In mid-2001, an Egyptian columnist wrote in the government-sponsored Al-Akhbar: «Thank you, Hitler, of blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians avenged in advance against the most vile criminals on Earth.» Two months later, Egypt’s Press Syndicate awarded this writer its highest distinction.

Since Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933, the Arabs have been adulating Nazism. It seems that some things never change — or perhaps some things do. Now the Arabs accuse the Jews of being Nazis. In this way, Hitler’s loyal fans are equating the primary victims of his genocide with the Nazi executioners themselves.

The defining expression of chutzpah is a man who murders his parents and then begs the jury for pity on the grounds that he is an orphan. But the Arabs’ perverse historical and moral inversion requires a new definition for the term. For chutzpah cannot sufficiently represent this incredible gall.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.

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«No one can control or change this revolution» Yasser Arafat said on a sunny day in September 1983.  “No one can control or change me.»

At the time, many ignored the Palestinian leader’s statement. To this very day, many continue to disregard Arafats commitment to his revolutionary cause — chief among them, Kofi Annan, the European Union, the U.S. Department of State and most of the liberal media.

But some never trusted Arafat: Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Right, Donald Rumsfeld and the U.S. president. In Monday’s speech — characterized by The Jerusalem Post as «perhaps the greatest injection of realism into U.S. policy in 35 years — President Bush addressed the fundamental problem with Palestinian politics today: the lack of a genuinely democratic leadership.

Listen to Bush: «Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born. I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror…  A Palestinian state will never be created by terror. It will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change or a veiled attempt to preserve the status quo.» Which is why Arafat has to go.

Bush mentioned five times the need for Palestinian democracy. He essentially vanquished the «one last chance» policy of his secretary of state. He also made Palestinian statehood conditional on the fulfillment of certain Palestinian actions (e.g. stop terror, fight corruption, clean up the judiciary). While all this was long overdue, it is nonetheless a most welcome development.
Although Bush’s remarks contained enough material to entertain political analysts and diplomats for a long while, the statement that elicited the most reaction was his call for ousting the current leadership, including and primarily, the Rais himself.

Bush’s political exile of Arafat is protested on the grounds that the United States has no business interfering with Palestinian domestic affairs — that it was an insult to «democracy and the outcome of elections that were supervised by the whole world,» as a Palestinian Legislative Council member put it.

Yes, the elections were «supervised,» but they also were rigged.

In January 1996 — 32 years after the establishment of the PLO — the Palestinian people were given the chance to vote for the first time. They overwhelmingly voted Arafat into office, as president of the Palestinian Authority.

Mind you, this was not a Swiss election. It was democracy, PLO-style. Independent Palestinian journalists were so strongly intimidated that most chose not cover the event at all. Unwanted candidates were threatened or bribed, therefore, Arafat faced no credible opposition. The only challenger was a grandmother who, by virtue of being a woman, stood no chance of success in a predominantly chauvinistic and traditionalist Muslim society. Whereas international observers did witness the elections, they failed to guarantee the protection of the ballot boxes during transportation and did not supervise vote counting. As a result, in some districts, there were more votes than registered voters, and some ballot boxes disappeared.

Besides, both the international community and the Israeli government needed Arafat to win the elections. After they had invested so much political capital in the peace process inaugurated 2 1/2 years previously, they were not going to allow an unexpected newcomer to jeopardize their political program. Whats more, a defeat of Arafat would have shaken their axiomatic belief in his being the «sole representative of the Palestinian people» — also a key marketing point used to persuade the Israeli people of the inevitability of having to deal with the head of the PLO.

In reality, Arafat was elected as legitimately as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, whom the West turned into pariahs after they became a threat to global peace. The tyrant of Gaza should be no exception.

«Arafat is not a leader; he is a myth» said former Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shlomo Ben-Ami when the Camp David talks collapsed. It was high time someone shattered this «myth.» That it was done by the president of the United States and leader of the Free World is nothing short of a diplomatic revolution. To which I say: Thank you, Mr. President.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.

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History is a cruel teacher, even for those who learn. Those who dont, as philosopher George Santayana quipped, are condemned to repeat their mistakes. What, then, can we learn from the history of the Palestinian-Israeli saga? Basically, three interrelated lessons.

• To call the Palestinian- Israeli quagmire a «conflict» is a misnomer. As Norman Podhoretz recently elucidated, the «Palestinian-Israeli conflict» denomination suggests a nonexistent mutuality of intentions in what should be described as the «Palestinian war against Israel.» In fact, Israel has been defending itself against unabated Palestinian aggression for more than 50 years.
• The current Palestinian uprising is not a rebellion against «occupation» but rather the latest violent manifestation of the old Palestinian/Arab enmity toward a Jewish sovereign presence in the land of Israel or Palestine.

As early as 1920, in what at the time was called a pogrom, Palestinian/Arab nationalists attacked the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine, killing five and wounding more than 200. In another assault the following year, 90 Jews were murdered and hundreds wounded. In the 1929 Palestinian/Arab attack, 133 Jews were killed and almost 400 wounded. Then, between 1936 and 1939, the «Arab Revolt» took the lives of 2,394 Jews. Each of these intifadas happened before the state of Israel was established. Once the state was founded, the Palestinians launched two more violent uprisings: the first from 1987 to 1992, and the current one initiated in 2000.

But pogroms, revolts or intifadas have not been the only weapons wielded by Palestinian/Arab aggressors. Indeed, Israel found itself under unprovoked military attack on at least five occasions: 1948, 1967, 1973, 1982 and 1991. Of these wars, the first two occurred before the Israeli «occupation» began. Also, the Palestine Liberation Organization was created in 1964 — three years before Israels capture of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Any fair-minded observer cannot escape the evident conclusion that the Palestinians are fighting not merely Israeli presence in the «territories» but Israel’s presence anywhere in the Mideast.

• All diplomatic proposals based on territorial compromise have been systematically rejected by the Palestinians. In 1937 the British Peel Commission recommended partitioning Palestine into two states: an Arab state on 90 percent of the land, and a Jewish state in the remaining 10 percent.

The Yishuv (as the Jewish community in Palestine was called at the time) fiercely debated this proposal, which departed considerably from past British promises to the Jews, but in the end accepted it. By contrast, the Palestinians/Arabs strongly rejected the proposal at a meeting they convened in Damascus.

Ten years later, a similar situation unfolded. The United Nations adopted Resolution 181, calling for two states in Mandatory Palestine — one Arab, the other Jewish. Again, even though this proposal fell short of its expectations, the Jewish community accepted it; the Arabs did not. Then, only three years after the Holocaust, the latter launched a war of extermination against the newly born state of Israel.

After the 1967 war, the United Nations adopted Resolution 242, giving birth to what is now considered a pillar of Mideast diplomacy: the land-for-peace formula. Israelis accepted it and even offered the Arabs a return of captured territory in exchange for peace. At a meeting in Khartoum, the Arabs replied with the now infamous «Three Nos»: no negotiation, no recognition, no peace. Eventually, and only after being persuaded of the futility of war, Egypt and Jordan embraced the «land for peace» concept.

But the Palestinians did not. So, when in July 2000 Israel presented them with a generous offer that met most Palestinian territorial demands, they chose to pay back with violence. In retrospect, we can see the Oslo Accords as a false truce in the spirit of the genocidal PLOs 1974 Phased Plan.

This pattern of the last 65 years is clear: Every reasonable territorial proposal raised by the international community and based on mutual compromise has been met with Jewish acceptance and Palestinian rejection. In light of this long, tragic experience, it’s hardly surprising that so many recent European proposals and U.S. missions have failed. Without a recognition of the true nature of the motives underlying Palestinian aggression against Israel, all diplomatic efforts unavoidably will fail as well.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.

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Beirut, Tunis and Ramallah form a pattern in which, every 10 years, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat buries himself in his own political hole only to be rescued by foreign intervention. Consider:

• Beirut 1982. After prompting a full-scale retaliatory attack from the Israeli army, Palestinian forces begin to retreat. As the Israelis advance to Beirut, Arafat finds refuge in the vault of the Bank Nationale de Paris. Only international intervention can save him from Ariel Sharon’s hands.

During the following 10 days, some 10,000 Palestinian fighters prepare to depart Lebanon. They arrive at the seaport — under international protection – where they board Greek ships displaying the flag of the United Nations, courtesy of then-Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

Arafat’s safety is guaranteed by officials of the Red Cross, the United Nations and the ambassadors of Greece and France, each of whom accompany the PLO leader as he approaches the port. Hidden in the shadows, Israeli snipers follow Arafat’s every move through their rifle lenses, waiting for the order that would never come. Secret cameras allow Israeli intelligence officers to watch Arafat as he disappears over the horizon, safely on his way to Tunisia.

• Tunis 1992. Having sided with Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, the PLO finds itself politically isolated and bankrupt. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia cut ties with the PLO and expel 300,000 Palestinian workers.

Meanwhile, the Islamic fundamentalist movement, Hamas, is gaining support among the Palestinians in the territories, posing a threat to the PLO leadership. The first intifada is waning. Israel remains as strong as ever. But at this point and with Norwegian mediation, the Israelis choose to rescue the PLO from its imminent descent into historical irrelevance.

Rightly seeing the Oslo Accords as a political life vest, the Palestinian organization learns to speak in the language of «peace,» «recognition» and «reconciliation.» Two years later, the exiled PLO departs Tunisia to rule most of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Once again, Arafat has been rehabilitated.

• Ramallah 2002. Confined to his Ramallah headquarters, surrounded by Israeli tanks, isolated from the rest of the world, Arafat is again under military siege. After a spate of horrific suicide bombings, Sharon calls him «the enemy» and declares that Israel is «at war.» The Palestinian leader defiantly proclaims that he is ready to become a shahid —martyr — yet he rushes to his bunker to make telephone calls urging the international community to come to his rescue. Typically, the world community defers to his request.

While the media protest Israel’s incursion into the autonomous areas, the U.N. Security Council passes a resolution calling for Israel’s withdrawal. As ambassadors complain about Israel’s defensive measures, «peace activists» arrive at Arafat’s headquarters to lend moral support.

Colorfully, filmmaker Oliver Stone, novelist José Saramago and anti-globalization radical José Bové pay visits to Arafat. Emboldened, Europe sends a delegation to «unblock the logjam» in the Middle East. In an unexpected speech, President Bush urges Israel to withdraw immediately from the territories. The following day, U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni pays a visit to «General Arafat,» as the Palestinian leader calls himself now. Shortly afterward, Secretary of State Colin Powell, too, visits the Palestinian leader.

A triumphant Arafat happily welcomes each one of them; his saviors have returned.

What’s next? Although Arafat is legendary for his survival skills, much of the credit for his political and personal longevity rests with the international community and some Israelis who seem determined to rescue him regardless of how often, deeply and nonsensically he gets himself into political quicksand.

Despite all the drama surrounding his «isolation,» these are not the chairman’s last days. Thanks to his rescuers, we are just witnessing yet another phase in Arafat’s political saga of survival.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.