‘IMPULSE MEMORIALIZING’: WILL CONGRESS PAY A DUBIOUS TRIBUTE TO YITZHAK RABIN BY WASTING MONEY ON ARAFAT?

(Washington, D.C.): In democracies, the assassination
of a president or a prime minister inevitably unleashes
powerful sentiments. Sorrow, anger, depression and
disorientation are nearly universally felt. In the wake
of the murder Saturday of Yitzhak Rabin, such emotions —
captured and conveyed in “real time” by
television — have been in evidence not only in Israel
but in the United States, as well.

In such circumstances, it is not uncommon for
admirers of the fallen leader to seek to express these
widespread public emotions by memorializing his life and
work. This can take the form of changing the name of
public squares, highways and office buildings. It can
also produce monuments or other works of art intended to
ensure that the life and works of the assassin’s victim
are not soon forgotten.

‘Impulse Memorializing’

There is, however, another tradition of what might be
called “impulse memorializing” — the rapid,
even unquestioning, enactment of legislation intended to
pay tribute to the departed leader by codifying his
unrealized agenda. A prominent example of this
phenomenon was the “Great Society” program, the
vast complex of ambitious social undertakings and the
associated bureaucracies that were pushed through
Congress by President Lyndon Johnson in the immediate
aftermath of the murder of his predecessor, John F.
Kennedy. It is only today, thirty-odd years later,
that a Republican Congress has been able to begin to
dismantle, albeit slowly and haltingly, the products of
that hasty tribute to the martyred president.

Now, it is said, another political murder demands
another political response from the United States
Congress.

Even before Mr. Rabin’s death, his supporters in
Washington were demanding congressional support for up to
half-a-billion dollars in foreign assistance for Yasser
Arafat’s PLO. The theory was that such assistance would
lubricate the peace process by providing tangible rewards
— namely, U.S. cash — for Palestinian participation in
peace-making with Israel.

Waste, Fraud and Abuse

In the months prior to the Rabin assassination,
though, it was becoming increasingly clear that international
aid donors were being taken for a ride. Significant
sums are being diverted to Arafat’s personal accounts and
to front companies engaged in activities inimical to
peace. Neither these funds, nor the PLO’s net worth —
estimated to be between $8-10 billion — have been used
appreciably to ameliorate the lot in life of the average
Palestinian Arab.

Worse yet, Arafat is demonstrating by his public
conduct that he is not the worthy partner in peace that
the Israeli and U.S. governments are trying to make him
out to be. In recent months, he has been applauding acts
of terror against Israelis very much like that
perpetrated against Mr. Rabin, calling the murderers
“heroes” and “martyrs.” Arafat
continues to profess a commitment to a holy war or
“jihad of battles, of death” that is consistent
with the as-yet-unchanged provisions of the PLO Charter
and wholly at odds with the spirit of peace. And he has
repeatedly described the agreements he has signed with
Israel as stratagems for implementing the “phased
plan of 1974,” which envisions first securing
territory from Israel by negotiation, then destroying the
Jewish State.

Therefore, the paeans to peace heard after Mr.
Rabin’s assassination notwithstanding, the real
impediment is not something that can be corrected by
increased negotiating flexibility on the part of the
Israeli government or greater U.S. largesse to Arafat.
The showstopper, after all, is the PLO leader’s chronic
and continuing failure to fulfill his commitments to
oppose and end terrorism against Israel.

Proponents of U.S. aid to Yasser Arafat — both in
Israel and in Washington — have made no secret of their
hope to exploit congressional sentiments of respect and
sympathy for Yitzhak Rabin to clinch congressional
approval of the aid. The expectation seems to be that, by
capitalizing upon the understandable desire to
memorialize the man, a thoughtful, informed debate can be
avoided over Israel’s ever-more-problematic policy toward
the PLO. Calls for an end to “extremist
rhetoric” should not become a means of discouraging
the sort of rigorous deliberation necessary to the
effective workings of a democracy.

Shades of the ‘Great Society’

There is, in fact, a real danger that the Great
Society experience will be replicated: A program that
could not otherwise have withstood rigorous scrutiny will
be adopted in its absence, an absence said to be
justified by tragedy and remembrance. The House of
Representatives is expected shortly to be asked to clear
the way for hundreds of millions more taxpayer dollars to
flow to Yasser Arafat.

Legislators should be under no illusion: It will
not be Yitzhak Rabin’s legacy as a peacemaker that they
will be immortalizing by such a vote. To the contrary,
the practical effect will be to reward a man, Yasser
Arafat, for his efforts cynically to undermine the peace
process, to the detriment of Israel’s interests — and
those of the United States.

The Bottom Line

If anything, the departure of Yitzhak Rabin from the
scene makes all the more compelling arguments advanced
before his death: Any further U.S. aid to the
Palestinians must be strictly conditioned on full
compliance by Arafat with his commitments. The
President ought to be required to certify to such
compliance at least every six months and those
certifications should be carefully reviewed and affirmed
by the cognizant committees of the Congress.

Far from creating a fitting tribute to the best of
Yitzhak Rabin’s service to Israel and the cause of peace,
the alternative — essentially unconditional U.S. aid to
Arafat — will not bring credit to the memory of the
intended honoree. Such an initiative, like that behind
the Great Society, is a momentous one: It requires
careful analysis and deliberation. The best intentions
about remembering the dead, like the best intentions
about aiding the poor, are not enough. Just as many
now believe that the Great Society ultimately did more
harm than good, there is a real danger that the same will
be said of U.S. cash for the PLO if it is made available
by short-circuiting debate in order to indulge in
impulsive memorializing of a life tragically cut short.