West Coast,
No-one in their right mind would call me left-of-centre - or even terribly centre. I'm a small c conservative with some markedly right wing views, and a handful of left wing ones. Like most people, I suspect.
It's not just in my eyes that the PLO have 'metamorphised' into a more-or-less legitimate organisation. The US Govt. recognise them, as do the UN, as do the Israeli Government (more or less). Yes, they were terrorists (I don't accept any differentiation between terrorists and 'freedom fighters' if they target a single civilian).
But they are at least 'former terrorists' and they do want to negotiate with Israel, be accepted by the West, and (crucially) accept Israel's right to exist.
If we refuse to deal with 'ex-terrorists' (and Arafat was quite definitely one of them) where do we draw the line? Over here in the UK we have ex-terrorist MPs, and other ex-terrorists have become heads of state whether Menachim Begin (Stern Gang) or dear old cuddly old Saint Nelson Mandela, or Bob Mugabe.......
With specific reference to Northern Ireland, I personally wish that someone had 'topped' Adams and McGuiness long ago, but recognise that they do now have some democratic mandate. I would point out that their repudiation of terrorist violence has never been as satisfactory as that of the main PLO leaders, while I only wish that they were as willing to compromise as Arafat now seems to be.
It may be distasteful, but once these terrorists embrace politics (the ballot box rather than the Armalite) then we have to deal with them. Sometimes we must even deal with active terrorists (like the Northern Alliance gangs of the late Ahmed Shah Massoud) if they are fighting a greater evil, or if they have right on their side.
And in the case of Israel's continued intransigence and illegal occupation of lands seized by force of arms, there is clearly some right on the Palestinian's side.
With regard to cynicism over the Israeli army's desire to assassinate Arafat, the source is not just some 'hick' or hack journo - it's from an interview with Shimon Peres (in Yediot Ahronoth - a leading Israeli daily), in which he accuses the Army Deputy Chief of Staff (General Moshe Yaalon) of wanting to eliminate Arafat. A dove only by Israeli standards, Peres has inferred that the Govt is not committed to peace, and has deliberately provoked incidents in order to disrupt ceasefire and peace initiatives.
The Israeli leader of the opposition, Mr Yosser Sarid, has even hinted darkly that the 'especially large number of killed and wounded on the Palestinian side' has been the result of deliberate Govt policy.
So it's not that I'm being pro-PLO and anti Israeli - even the Israeli parliamentary opposition would find little to argue about with what I have to say about the moral and practical need for a solution and an accomodation. It's only the ultra-right wing and theocratic zionists who refuse to cede another inch of territory, and who blame Arafat for every problem.
I would re-stress that the Palestine issue is a pre-requisite to gaining Arab support for the legitimate need for a war against terrorism. This isn't about ambiguity or a mere 'show of support', it's the case that from an Arab perspective (and even to many European governments) the reaction so far has looked like an American-led war against a long-standing enemy and scapegoat (Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism). The US must act to correct this misapprehension, and the best way of doing so is by jettisoning the one really anti-Arab strand of its present foreign policy. Why should UN embargoes and resolutions be rigorously applied against Iraq, and ignored completely when they apply to Israel? Why was Milosovic a war-criminal and Sharon a hero? The USA would not accept Israel's behaviour and repression in any other nation. This is hypocrisy and undermines any claim that the USA has to being an ethical state, which is a tragic shame, because almost everywhere else in its foreign policies, the USA does provide a 'shining light' for the rest of the world to follow.
I wonder whether you (in the US) gain a balanced view of what's actually going on in the Middle East I'm not sure we do over here, where our media tends to be slightly pro-Israeli and slightly anti-Arab. While the Taliban have declared Jihad, were you aware, for example, that the leading Imam in Saudi Arabia has already criticised this and questioned its validity, and has issued a Fatwah specifically stating that the suicide bombers on 11 September were wrong, anti-Islamic, and stating that on no account should they be viewed as martyrs?