Writing in The National Review, James Robbins again takes issue with the the state department and the CIA, both of whom, according to a recent The New York Times report, continue to “view Arafat as the best chance for peace and stability over the long term”:

[…] the American fixation on Arafat is in fact the main obstacle to the emergence of a true nonviolent political opposition movement in the PA. Arafat supporters in this country maintain that he is necessary because there is no viable alternative. That, of course, is the whole problem — in so saying they make it imperative for Arafat to ensure that no viable alternative ever emerges. Radical opposition groups will always have a market niche, especially with external state sponsorship and the ability to use coercion to get their way in the streets. As the polls show, their influence is vastly out of proportion to their popular support. Moreover, they are very useful to Arafat because he can point to them as the less acceptable successor groups should he be displaced. However, potential liberal opponents to Arafat have no such power bases or means of influence. The nonviolent factions can only try to lobby for change, in a political system with infrequent and rigged elections, no free press, and the constant threat of violence against them from other less Lockean Palestinians.

So if the top three most popular Palestinian leaders (albeit at very low levels of support) are a former terrorist, a terrorist middleman, and a no-kidding active terrorist, is there any hope? Refer back to [George] Mason: ‘All power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.’

For Robbins, keeping Arafat around “will not allow a peaceful opposition to take root. The potential exists — it lives amongst the people, as it always will in any society ruled by despots. Yet how can a legitimate popular nonviolent voice be heard when the United States continues to back a leader whose stature is based on violence, whose support for peaceful change has been at best equivocal, and whose overriding objective is not the erection of a Palestinian democracy but the maintenance of personal power?”

How indeed…

Although, it sure has been peaceful on the streets of Israel since Arafat came slithering out of his filthy compound, hasn’t it…?

Related: Eli Lake, “Democracy in Palestine”

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