March 21, 2002

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: GARY SCHMITT

SUBJECT: Arafat

Within hours of Vice President Dick Cheney’s offer to meet next week with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat if a cease-fire were established with Israel, Israel was hit by a Palestinian terrorist attack on a bus traveling to Nazareth. And, today, within minutes of a Bush-Cheney press briefing to highlight the vice president’s trip to the Middle East, another suicide bomber blew himself up in the heart of downtown Jerusalem. The two attacks killed numerous Israelis and wounded scores more.

Responsibility for Wednesday’s terrorist attack was claimed by Islamic Jihad. In its aftermath, the Palestinian news agency issued a statement from the Palestinian leadership condemning the attack and calling for a halt to these kinds of operations. Today’s attack, however, was carried out by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a wing of Arafat’s own Fatah movement. Combined, the two attacks expose a fundamental flaw in the policy assumptions of both the U.S. and Israeli governments, namely that the “peace process” must involve Yasser Arafat.

Either Arafat is sufficiently in charge to stop these attacks, but doesn’t, or he is incapable of stopping them. He is either complicit in the terrorism that is taking place or a mere figurehead who has lost control of the population he is presumed to govern. In either case, we should stop acting as though Arafat is a part of the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Expectations are that Israel will lift the travel ban on Arafat and allow him to go the Arab League summit next week in Beirut. However, should the Israeli government decide not to allow Arafat to return, the Bush Administration should support that decision. It’s time to move beyond Arafat.