I would suggest looking a little deeper into the talks at Camp David and why they failed. Arafat isn't like a dictator, and he isn't like the president. For one thing, the president's opponents aren't armed to the teeth! Arafat had to scuttle the talks in order to prevent a Civil war from breaking out. Hamas wasn't happy. In addition to that, after the talks broke down, Isreal then went and systematicly distroyed the palistinian leadership. the idea was to chop off the head, and the body would die. Well that doesn't work in the cell structure that exists in Palistine. They killed the leaders, and lost control of the people. The suicide bombers went from being directed by polictical means, to just anyone, anywhere, whenever. Making the bombings harder to predict and therefore, stop. There has been much debate over this tactic.. esspecially in the days leading up the attack on Iraq. Isreal warned the US agaist targeting leadership of any terror group, lest you loose control of the larger body of that group and then loose the ablity to predict what that group will do.
Arafat may not have been a friend of peace and he held onto power with a Bush like grasp.. but he was a man who was in an imposible position. |
