Norway's Foreign Minister Jan Petersen visited Yassir Arafat in Ramallah this week, the first minister to do so in three months. It's a curious statement to make, and a curious time to make it. It offends the Israeli government, (which will likely retaliate with a boycott of Petersen), and it picks a side in the internal struggle in Arafat's government, between the side we know is bad and the side that may be less bad. The offense to Israel may have been intended, but did Petersen fully think through the message he's sending to the Palestinians?

Probably not, if Petersen seriously believes that Arafat will pay any attention whatsoever to what he had to say:

Jan Petersen had two main messages for Arafat. - One was that they had to do everything possible to get the terror under control. [..] The second was that they must get a government up and running. I told him I was disappointed that Abu Mazen had been unable to maintain power, and that Abu Ala now opviously has problems getting the authorities he needs. Here Arafat must contribute by applying his strength to achieve a positive solution, so we can have a function government.

Hm, "terror under control". Sounds to me like they've had that for some time. Perhaps they should try to stop it instead.

ITS TIME WE STARTED TO LISTEN TO ARAFAT

Arafat Invokes 1974 Phased Plan Calling for Israel's Destruction
Compares Oslo to Temporary Truce
PA Chairman: "I Envy the Martyrs and Hope to Be One"

Arafat's Secret Agenda Is to Wear Israelis Out

Arafat estimates that the final-stage agreements between the Palestinians and Israel will ultimately bring about Israel's collapse. He reportedly told the diplomats that a migration of Arabs to "the West Bank and Jerusalem" and the psychological warfare the Palestinians would wage against the Israelis would cause a massive emigration of Jews to the United States.

Arafat: Jihad to
Liberate Jerusalem

The Jihad [Islamic holy war] will continue, and Jerusalem is not [only] for the Palestinian people, it is for all the Muslim nation.
You are responsible for Palestine and for Jerusalem before me [applause], the land which had been blessed for the whole world.

Now after this agreement you have to understand our main battle.

Our main battle is Jerusalem. Jerusalem. The first shrine of the Moslems.

This has to be understood for everybody and for this I was insisting before signing to have a letter from them, the Israelis, that Jerusalem is one of the items which has to be under discussion and not the state, the permanent State of Israel! No! It is the permanent State of Palestine [applause]. Yes, it is the permanent State of Palestine.

"When we stopped the Intifada we did not stop the Jihad [Islamic holy war] to establish Palestine with Jerusalem as our capital.... We know only one word: Jihad, Jihad, Jihad.... We are in a conflict with the Zionist movement, the Balfour Declaration, and all imperialist activity...."

IF WE LISTEN, WE WILL UNDERSTAND

Norwegian politicians are hopelessly naive about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Without a doubt, Jan Petersen believes that, given opportunity and encouragement, the PLO/Arafat will do what he (Petersen) would do, namely negotiate a durable settlement with Israel involving mutually agreed-upon borders and normalized relationships. And it's telling that so many Norwegian editors and politicians take this view as an indisputable premise, with the inescapable conclusion that it's Israel that stands in the way of such a settlement. The result is that Arafat gets every benefit of the doubt, while Sharon gets none.

Meanwhile, of course, Petersen's visit is cynically used by the PLO for propaganda purposes. Having said this, I am not sure that boycotting Arafat is all that productive, either. For better or worse, he is a major factor in the conflict; by the (abysmal) standards of Arab regimes, he was once elected to his job; and Palestinians seem to accept adversity as proof of the legitimacy of their cause.

Norwegian politicians, the press, etc., have failed in viewing all this from the Palestinians' point of view (yes, you read correctly). Palestinians endure their suffering (or rather their sense of it - compared to Arabs in most Arab countries, they're relatively well off) because they are convinced the payoff will be a wholly Arab Palestine, with Jews (at most) a tolerated minority. To accept anything less is to have suffered for nothing.

Arafat is an old, sick man--and a terrible hypocrite. He has betrayed his people. There could have been a settlement and the Arabs could have had their own state. Now they continue to go into ecoomic decline and are convinced by their schools and "elites" that destroying Israel is a good thing and that all other considerations are to be put aside. What a pity. The terror groups are not going away. But the State for the Palestininans is going away, further and further with each suicide bombing.

It is oh so easy to take the "morally neutral" stand, or to automatically side with whoever has less money. Yet it is also incredibly shallow.

Leif Knutsen: I would agree with all of your points, though I do think sidelining Arafat is good policy. There has to be a way of showing that Arafat's kind of leaders - elected or not - will not be effective.

And I would complete your comment on the wholly Arab Palestine in that (in the least) the Jews would be an extinguished minority.

All the more reason to support US policy in the Middle East. The Europeans would only permit genocide to happen, as they did in Yugoslavia.

I thought we Americans were supposed to be the unsophisticates. But the Norwegian government seems incredibly naive. Arafat is a thug who has not done anything for his people. Remember the Camp David Accords? In 1979, "Palestine" was supposed to become autonomous in 2 years. Now it is almost 24 years later--long enough to have created a thriving small country.

I believe the fact that Israel is a Jewish country has confused you silly Europeans. Imagine a Scandinavian country exactly where Israel is today. You would be proud of it. It combines socialism and capitalism and is always evolving. Sure it has economic and political problems, but WHO DOESN'T????? Yet you don't see the good--only the problems. I must tell you that since the 2nd Intifada began in September 2000, I have lost respect for most European countries (as indicated by their leadership and attitudes toward Israel). You are morally confused.

A great book to read, if you haven't already read it, is Why Terrorism Works by Alan Dershowitz. His point is that treating terrorists like legitimate politicans and soldiers has given them a world stage and made the tactic effective. If they had been punished properly for their crimes, terrorism would not be the scourge that it is today. As I recall, he dates the beginning of the rise of terrorism from the 1972(?) Olympics, when the PLO massacred Israel athletes. Of course, people think that if they aren't Jewish or Israeli, they won't get hurt.

What is Arafat's strange hold on European officials and newspaper people? Can you imagine a Norwegian politican like Arafat being accepted in Norway? Maybe this is the ultimate racism--holding vile standards for Arab politicians that one would never accept in Europe.

Karine, I've been telling those over at the Independent's chat room (via Delphi, go there for some real fun) that we're not going to let their Pali proxies finish the job they started.

They want Israel gone. That's Araffish's hold.

We always hear if we would stop funding Israel. I suggest they stop funding Arafish.

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