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Bend, But Not Break
Ehud Ya'ari

Sharon is no longer worriedabout the morning after Arafat

WITH HIS BACK To the wall, trapped in a snare that he set for himself, grounded helicopterless in Ramallah, only 800 meters from the nearest Israeli tank, Yasser Arafat was, at press time, nevertheless determined not to surrender to the Israeli diktat.

He has burst into tears a few times, to the great embarrassment of his visitors, and has had more than a few tantrums, but remained set on achieving three immediate objectives: a semblance of a cease-fire with Israel; a truce in his very public run-in with the Americans; and an effective armistice with Hamas. In other words, to crawl reluctantly to the point where Gen. Anthony Zinni would agree to declare that Arafat is doing enough to prevent terror, without having totally removed the threat of violence against the cities of Israel, and without being pushed into a civil war with the other components of the "coordinating committee" of the intifada.

There is no longer any need to persuade the Americans -- or, for that matter, the Egyptians and the Jordanians -- that the rais is again trying to deceive and mislead everyone. They have already learned as much for themselves. The arrests of terrorists on the wanted list are not real arrests, and are certainly not accompanied by any serious interrogation aimed at tracking down the networks behind the suicide bombings.

Of those arrested, many are being held in detention "for their own protection" in guest apartments. When Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher demanded during his early December visit that Arafat distance himself totally from Hamas -- in the same way that Pakistan�s Gen. Musharraf turned his back on the Taliban -- the Palestinian leader evaded the issue with excuses that drove Cairo to distraction.

Since he has no option, Arafat is prepared to bend in the face of American pressure the likes of which he has never experienced before -- but he has no intention of breaking.

The ball will, inevitably, end up back in the Americans� court. How ready will they be to keep up the current pressure -- and even increase it with the threat of sanctions against Arafat? If the administration shows signs that it is willing to be satisfied with a pretense of a campaign against terror, in one form or another, Arafat will stop in his tracks and will no longer do what he in any case has no appetite to do.

What is required now is a measure of patience on the part of the Americans, rather than a rush for achievements and breakthroughs. After all, Arafat cannot afford a confrontation with President Bush at the same time that he is trying to prevent a showdown with Hamas�s Sheikh Yassin.

Systematic pressure will force Arafat to instruct his security apparatuses to do more than he intended to have them do. His intelligence chiefs say as much themselves to the Americans and the Israelis alike.

So long as the United States sticks to the line taken by Bush in his recent statements, even Shimon Peres will find it too difficult to throw a lifeline to his "partner" in need. And it must be admitted that what Zinni has been demanding of Arafat so far surpasses what Peres would have asked of him. Even the Europeans have slightly distanced themselves from the scene, and the sad clown of the European Union, Mideast envoy Miguel Moratinos, has become less of a nudnik.

In London and Berlin, if not in Paris, Arafat is known to be a plain liar. The British and the Germans realize he is trying to bring a temporary halt to the terror attacks, not bring them to an end.

That, of course, is a dangerous game from his point of view. There should be no mistaking Sharon: He is gradually trying to create the optimal, most fitting backdrop vis � vis the international community and Israeli public opinion alike against which to strike the decisive blow against Arafat. And so far, he�s not been doing badly. If Arafat gives him either the opportunity or the reason, Sharon will not hesitate and will certainly not bother to consult with Peres beforehand.

It will be up to Arafat to spoil those ominous-for-him preparations, but up till now he hasn�t managed to garner solid enough international guarantees against his demise. Twenty years after Arafat and Sharon faced off during the siege of West Beirut, the two old men are confronting each other once again in a test that is several times more limited in its military scope, but several times more fateful in terms of the consequences.

Sharon is no longer worried about the morning after Arafat -- it couldn�t be worse than what we have now -- and that is exactly the revolution that took place in the wake of the prime minister�s visit to the White House. Arafat was personally declared by Sharon as the "greatest obstacle to peace" -- and portrayed in a much more negative light than the Palestinian Authority itself. Don�t miss the nuance!