Content area
Full Text
Editorial
Four times Israel has given Yasser Arafat the benefit of the doubt when no real doubt existed: declaring a unilateral cease- fire, accepting the Mitchell Report, postponing a response to the Tel Aviv disco attack, and now by accepting the Tenet cease-fire plan. Israel's restraint has so far successfully backed Arafat into a corner from which he has yet to escape.
There should be no illusions here, however. The alternative to an absolute end to the violence is an absolute end to the possibility of any negotiated arrangement with the Palestinian Authority.
The Tenet plan wisely includes the main elements needed both for a cease-fire and to address the Palestinian use of violence as an alternative to negotiations. The two key future-oriented elements are the confiscation of illegal weapons and the arrest of those who reject the cease-fire and would continue to attack Israelis. It is far from clear that the US demands are sufficient in these two areas. There seems to be no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal weapons will be collected, let alone destroyed. And Palestinian leaders have already explicitly denied that there will be any arrests...