Word: threateners
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...crackdown could just as easily backfire by boosting popular sympathy for Arafat and rallying the sometimes disparate Palestinian groups to join forces against the occupying enemy. Last week Palestinian militant groups lined up to back Arafat and threaten Israel with more violence. Hamas declared that radical Islamic and secular factions had agreed to coordinate efforts. Another extremist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, announced that "every Israeli--inside and outside Israel--is a target." Even some Israelis thought Sharon's Ramallah venture would only worsen matters. Said Yossi Beilin, a member of Israel's center-left Labor...
...Members of the Sharon government, as well as much of the Israeli public and a good number of Bush Administration officials, believe Arafat has the power to take on groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He just chooses not to--in part because he fears that doing so would threaten his hold on power. Some exasperated Israelis charge that Arafat has failed to confront Palestinian terrorism because, perversely, he benefits from it: the steady waves of attacks have demoralized segments of Israeli society and invited military responses by Sharon that make Israel look like a bully in the eyes...
...consequences. Violating Anwar Sadat's peace treaty, cutting itself off from vital U.S. aid, the Egyptian army could send part of its vast forces--say, the four tank divisions and eight mechanized divisions with 1,600 battle tanks, including first-line U.S. M1A1s--into the Sinai peninsula to threaten the Israeli frontier. Compelling the Israelis to mobilize their own army, which would very likely freeze any further action against the Palestinians, would make sense as a piece of military gamesmanship. But strategically it would be catastrophic, because if the Egyptians acted, Syria's young and insecure President Bashar Assad would...
...done with any intention of actually fighting to provoke a war nonetheless. Other Arab governments could be propelled by a mounting spiral of popular enthusiasm to send their own forces to reinforce the frontline states. That would cue Saddam Hussein to demand his opportunity to send armored forces to threaten Israel by marching through Jordan or Syria or both. The King of Jordan would dread such contaminating assistance in his territory, and Assad of Syria too would fear it, but if the rhetorical escalation of the leaders and popular agitation heat up the climate, it might become impossible to deny...
...Arafat is killed. Egypt would lose the U.S. aid that pays for the very weapons it would deploy ($2 billion a year) and for much of its daily bread. Jordan is likewise dependent, Syria's equipment is too outdated to risk war, and even Saddam Hussein can hardly threaten Israel with ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction whose existence he strenuously denies...