'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

CSM column on Arafat, US policy

I have a column in the CSM today about Arafat. It also has a recommendation for what the US could reasonably do, right now and also after the November election, to help improve the situation. The segué there is this crucial argument:

[The] trends in Palestinian politics are extremely important to the US, because Washington's recent policies on the Palestinian issue are cited by Muslims worldwide as one of the main reasons for their strong opposition to Washington.

It may be true that Mr. Sharon is now willing to pull back from the tiny, overpopulated Gaza Strip. But what Muslims around the world see is that he continues to implant thousands of new Israeli settlers each month into the West Bank, including East Jerusalem - a holy city for Muslims, as well as Jews and Christians. When Washington continues to give Israel generous and unconditional support despite Sharon's pursuit of the West Bank settlement project, that seriously undercuts US ability to win Muslim support in the campaign against global terrorism.

Now, I wish I'd put that point up to the very top of the piece. Bush's flagrantly unfair, inhumane, and destructive policy on the Palestinian issue is really the big, unmentioned elephant in the room in all the current discussions in the US discourse over "what can we do to undercut support for Al-Qaeda".

Nearly everyone engaged in these discussions "knows" the elephant is there, running rampage round the room. But no-one really wants to mention it. Not the 9/11 commission report. Not John Kerry (particularly, not John Kerry, the pathetic wimp). Not the editorialists in major newspapers...

Addressing the Palestinian issue in a fair and constructive manner right now is not, as some claim, to "cave" to the terrorists, or to appease them. It is quite simply to do the right thing-- something that should have been done a long time ago.

It is, also, a right thing that should be done--for its own internal ethical reasons as well as for important reasons of global stability--regardless of the miserable performance of the Arafat leadership. Why should the great masses of the Palestinian be punished for the poor quality of the leadership currently being exercized by one sad old deluded man sitting almost incommunicado in a bunker in Ramallah?

The Palestinians' legitimate desires--for civil, political, and national rights equal to those enjoyed by all the world's other peoples-- need to be addressed, and can be addressed fairly right away. 56 years is an awfully long time to wait to be heard.