The Bush administration and its Mideast envoy, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, have made it clear that no progress is possible in the current crisis until Yasser Arafat cracks down decisively on the two groups with chief responsibility for terror attacks: Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Yet Arafat has failed to arrest most of those on a list Zinni has given him.
Indeed, he arrests those who are not a threat and makes little effort to arrest those who are. The three members of Hamas who carried out the bus attack last week -- an attack that killed 10 people and wounded 30 -- had long been on a list of those the Israelis had asked the Palestinian Authority to arrest.
Demands without consequences have rarely had much effect on Arafat. It is time for a consequence. It is time for an American ultimatum. The ultimatum must be very clear, with specific demands and an unmistakable consequence.
The demands: that Arafat arrest all those on the list of 33 that Zinni gave him. That he shut down Hamas and Islamic Jihad offices and symbolic elements of the Dawa -- the social services and support structure that is the lifeblood of Hamas. (Nothing is more likely to stop Hamas support for terror than to know that the Palestinian Authority is going to take over the Dawa.) He must make a concerted effort to shut down the bomb-making and mortar-producing factories in the West Bank and Gaza. And he must make -- not simply issue -- a statement in Arabic in which he denounces terror as a threat to the Palestinian cause, makes clear that those who have perpetrated the violence deny the Palestinian people any chance to achieve their aspirations, declares that the Palestinian Authority will not tolerate terror and will arrest all involved in its planning, organization and execution, and proclaims that only negotiations, not violence, can lead to achievement of Palestinian goals.
Arafat should be told he has 96 hours to take these steps, with the understanding that his security representatives report to U.S. officials every 12 hours on their progress. We must be the judge of whether he has fulfilled the demands, and he must understand that if he does not, the United States will suspend its relations with the Palestinian Authority until such time as the demands are met. Arafat should also understand that we will press the Europeans and others to join us in suspending relations if he does not fulfill these demands -- demands that go to the heart of his responsibility as a leader.
To give Arafat the maximum opportunity to fulfill this responsibility -- and to deny him any excuse for not doing so -- we should also insist that the Israelis stop all military activity against the Palestinians for the four days. Whatever questions the Israelis may have about doing this, the larger reality is that they do not have a military solution to the problem of Hamas terror, and it is in Israeli interests for the United States to give Arafat an ultimatum. Arafat will never submit to an Israeli ultimatum, but he might submit to ours.
An American ultimatum that could lead to the suspension of relations will affect the one thing Arafat truly values: the cause of Palestine. His own persona has been fused with that cause. His own legitimacy is tied to achieving international recognition of that cause and its advancement. He can ill afford, after 15 months of a disastrous intifada, to have his own standing so clearly damaged by the possibility of international isolation.
For those who say Arafat does not have the power, the answer is that his weakness stems in no small part from not leading. In the past 15 months, it is not that Hamas has gained such strength; it is that he has lost it. Today, even at a time when Palestinian anger and frustration have never been higher, Palestinian polling shows that 70 to 75 percent of the Palestinian public does not support Hamas.
The problem for Arafat is that nearly 80 percent do not support him. His support has declined during the intifada not because he failed to support violence and Palestinian martyrs -- of whom he speaks incessantly -- but because he offers no pathway forward, no strategy for ending the pain and suffering, no reason to believe he has any ideas at all except to wait to be rescued by the international community. And the Palestinian public is too smart to believe that will ever happen.
Arafat's only salvation is to lead, to decide, to make a choice. He is the master of avoiding decisions and hard choices. His history suggests he makes a choice only when he has none. An American ultimatum will leave him with no choice. If he still fails to act, we, too, will have no choice. But at least the Palestinian public will know what is required of their leadership if Palestinian interests are to be addressed.
The writer was director for policy planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush and special Middle East coordinator under President Clinton. He is currently counselor for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.