Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: The Global March to Jerusalem, a brave and admirable attempt to awaken the world’s conscience [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But it's not as though your side was going to be able to force him out as leader and replace him with someone you preferred and they suddenly make Arafat's influence totally vanish.
Even if he stayed in exile...he was always going to have a large cadre of armed loyalists...nothing was going to get THEM to switch to the leaders YOU think they should have followed instead. And there were too many of them for the IDF to simply have been able to wipe them out because...well, because your side never came CLOSE to wiping them out.
Arafat was a louse...but his cooperation was still going to be necessary at some level...because even if you kept him in exile, he was always going to have the ability to scupper any deal he didn't agree with.
You seem to forget that.
And that is the fatal flaw in your argument here.
A peace deal excluding Arafat was always going to fail.
And I don't like Arafat...he was never my kind of guy...I'm just recognizing that dealing with him was going to be necessary. Can you understand the difference between that and being the president of his fan club?