Author: Barry Rubin
Publication: The Global Research in International Affairs
Date: August 26, 2008
URL: http://www.gloriacenter.org/index.asp?pname=submenus/articles/2008/rubin/8_26_11-52.asp
The Italian government, it has just come to
light, let Palestinian terrorist groups operate freely in its country from
the 1970s onward as long as they promised not to attack Italians. As former
President Francesco Cossiga explained, the agreement with the PLO and PFLP
was that if you "don't harm me... I won't harm you." Thus, these
groups could move terrorists and equipment destined for use in murdering [non-Italian]
civilians in and out of Italy-protected by Italian security agencies.
In 1995, after PLO terrorists took 545 passengers
on the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro hostage (and killed one American
passenger), U.S. Navy fighters intercepted the escaping gunmen's flight and
forced it to land in Italy. The Italian government was so eager to avoid trouble
with Arafat that it let their leader escape and soon freed most of the terrorists
as well.
Yet this is hardly new or unique. It was long
known that France followed a similar policy and so, at least at times, did
Britain. In 1969 British policy, as one official put it in an internal document
was "to distinguish between Fatah, which is going out of its way to emphasize
its disapproval of wanton terrorism, and the PFLP, a small group which does
present a threat." Another British diplomat urged London not to offend
Fatah and the PLO since they were powerful and "may one day be a government."
One would never guess that at the time Fatah was staging terrorist attacks
on Israeli civilians; was the PFLP's close ally; openly declared it would
wipe Israel off the map; was subverting Jordan's government, Britain's closest
Middle East ally; and would within a little more than a year launch a massive
international terrorist campaign against British targets.
It is not surprising then, that the PLO came
to believe terrorism was a no-risk strategy and that it had infinite time
in which to wage his revolution. No wonder, too, did terrorism become such
a popular strategy in general from the 1960s down to the present day.
But there's another point to be made here
as well. European countries and much of the elites there and in the United
States claim that they sympathize with the Palestinians-or at least are far
more critical of Israel-due to a sympathy with the underdog and a higher knowledge
about how peace can be made and extremism defused. In fact they are motivated
far more by fear (of being attacked themselves) and greed (for trade to the
Arabic-speaking world and Iran).
Often, implicitly or explicitly, it is suggested
that, ironically, the experience of Jewish persecution had brought about this
contemporary hypersensitivity to the suffering of the helpless underdog. In
fact, though, the motive is the same now as it was then: hypersensitivity
to the power and wealth of the persecutors.
In a very real way--though of course there
are exceptions--the prospect of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Jews
being murdered by an Iranian nuclear attack does not bother European countries
much more than the last time it happened.
By way of contrast, every attempt is made
to prevent what radical Islamists perceive as insults even at the cost of
throwing away key democratic freedoms. This is not sensitivity to perpetrating
bigotry but sensitivity to violence being perpetrated on themselves.
Oh, and by the way, past efforts to appease
PLO terrorists did not protect Britain, France, and Italy from major terrorist
operations on their soil. Today, expressions of sympathy and diplomatic efforts
do not preserve them from being targets of radical Islamists. Some leaders
now understand this fact; others don't.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research
in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review
of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader
(seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition
of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of
Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The
Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle- East (Wiley).
- The Global Research in International Affairs
(GLORIA) Center Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, P.O. Box 167, Herzliya,
46150, Israel
