Barkan: ''Uproot the Terrorist Monopoly''

By Matthew Kenney | Monday, May 13, 2002

Nimrod Barkan, a senior policy advisor to the Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, spoke on April 24 to a bustling Dartmouth hall auditorium composed of both community members and students on the current Israel-Palestinian crisis. Michael Sevi '02 organized the event with the purpose of 'addressing hard questions through intelligent dialogue.' The event stood in stark contrast to the brash and often crude anti-Israel denunciations spouted from students at the recent protest outside Collis. 'This is the only way this can be explored in a meaningful context,' Sevi said.

A twenty-year veteran of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Barkan spoke at length about the violent history of Israel since the beginning of the Oslo 'peace process.' The role of Arab perceptions throughout the past decade in relation to Israeli and US policy were a key component of this history. Barkan thoroughly outlined the events that have led the Israelis and the Palestinians to their current positions, starting with the impetus for the Oslo agreements.

In 1992 the Palestinian Liberation Organization was in dire straits. The Soviet Union's collapse deprived the PLO of one of its main supporters. More importantly, the overwhelming US military victory in the Gulf War showed the Arab world the futility of armed conflict against the West, while Arafat, having sided with Hussein, looked the fool. Thus, the PLO decided to negotiate and agreed to the Oslo Accords in 1993, in which the Palestinians, and specifically Arafat, agreed to give up terror as a means to their political objectives and to prevent others in areas under their control from using terrorism as a weapon.
Since Arafat signed the Oslo agreement, 774 Israelis have been killed, and thousands more wounded. Only 162 lives were lost during the reign of Arafat's terror-state in Lebanon from 1970 to 1982. Most of these recent deaths have occurred during the past eighteen months and are not the deaths of soldiers, but of teenagers in malls and discos, old men and women (including survivors of the Holocaust), and children at Bar Mitzvahs.

' We simply could not take anymore... the War on Terrorism compels us to act,' Barkan said. According to Barkan, it was likely that the Camp David summit in 2000—where Israel offered the PLO 92% of the West Bank and Gaza, and the US offered $20 billion—did not push Arafat towards peace, but merely gave him the impression that terrorism was working. The unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon a few months later then further emboldened Arafat. Barkan explained Arafat's thinking as: 'If Hezbollah could force out Israel unilaterally after 25 deaths a year for 25 years, if Arafat produced 250 deaths in five years, maybe he could force the Israelis out of the West Bank and Gaza unilaterally.' The result, however, was not what Arafat expected. The current conflict is a 'war for state power,' and 'one side will break first.' Therefore, 'as long as the Palestinians believe they can use terror,' there will be a stalemate. The Israelis have moved to shatter that belief.

The Israelis, acting against U.S. and international complaint, finally went into the territories to 'uproot the terrorist infrastructure.' The PLO had 'built a network for terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza... to produce more and more [suicide bombers].' Arafat had 'violated [the key] pillar of Oslo,' a measure of which that he 'not engage in terror.' By cheating on Oslo, Barkan asserts Arafat has 'taken himself out of the game. [Arafat should] be weakened as much as possible, as quickly as possible.'

In response to questions about the current push for a UN 'fact-finding mission,' Barkan explained his fear, given the UN's poor previous history, of the mission turning into an anti-Israel rant. Twenty-three soldiers were killed in Jenin, and Barkan wants to make sure the report contains the full story, not simply the humanitarian suffering, that the terrorist infrastructure was destroyed. The Europeans are upset over the recent battles in Jenin, as their money financed much of the infrastructure there. Barkan dismissed the sniveling Europeans, explaining that Europe has 'an appeasement mentality... just like the one seen in the 30's'—Europe's objections to deposing Saddam Hussein and the extremism evident in the recent French election show why Europe is so anti-Israel.
Barkan expressed his hope of dealing with 'new leadership' in the PLO, especially among the 'civilian side of the PLO.' According to Barkan, the extreme alternatives, such as pushing the Palestinians out of the territories much as the Germans were pushed out of East Prussia (modern day Poland) is 'immoral,' and the idea of building a giant wall is 'unworkable.' A better chance for a true and lasting peace seems to exist in an American military defeat of Iraq. This would 'be a defeat for radicalism,' and would 'change everything.'

Barkan: ''Uproot the Terrorist Monopoly''

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