Arafat: Can't live with him, can't live without him

It has been obvious for years that Yasser Arafat, who once seemed to make the transition from terrorist to statesman, has no abiding interest in peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Jews in the Middle East.
The defining (well, redefining) moment came just over three years ago when Arafat rejected the peace offer made by Prime Minister Ehud Barak as part of a plan being aggressively pushed by President Bill Clinton, who was still trying to establish one of his legacies. It was not a perfect offer, but neither was it a final offer, and if Arafat had wanted to pursue peace there would have been no better time than the summer of 2000.
Today, Arafat would be the prime minister of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with headquarters in East Jerusalem. Would he have been given the Old City of Jerusalem? No. Would he have won a right of return for Palestinians who left Israel in 1948? No. But he would have had the makings of a viable nation.
Instead, Arafat walked away, choosing instead to encourage a second Intefadeh, a campaign of terrorism designed either to force Israel to cede territory rather than negotiate its transfer or designed, ultimately, to destroy Israel.
In recent years, there was an effort to make Arafat irrelevant, but recent events have shown that he never had any intention of fading away. Now, Israel has made a blunder that has given Arafat renewed support in the streets and, according to some reports, a new energy unexpected in a man of 74 years.
Bad idea badly put
A suggestion that Israel might exile, imprison or even assassinate Arafat brought immediate international condemnation --a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel was avoided only through a U.S. veto. And it brought Arafat supporters into the streets, giving him the kind of popular support he has not enjoyed for years.
Israel is understandably frustrated with Arafat. They view him as a supporter or enabler of terrorist factions that send suicide bombers onto buses and into cafes and markets in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They are frustrated when most of the rest of the world fails to see Arafat as a terrorist, and when even Israel's strongest ally, the United States, which has a stated position of punishing terrorists and their supporters, effectively tells them that Arafat must be given a pass.
But while Israel's frustration is understandable, deporting, jailing or killing Arafat is not the answer. Any of those courses of action would only make Arafat a martyr around whom anti-Israeli radicals of every stripe would rally. At the same time, Israel's support in much of the rest of the world, already shaky, who dissolve.
There is no easy answer for where Israel goes next in an effort to achieve peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians and to assure security for its own people. But striking out against Arafat, as tempting as it may be, is not the answer.