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September 14, 2001/Elul 26, 5761, Vol. 54, No. 1
U.S. anti-terror policy might create sympathy for Israel
MATTHEW E. BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - Stren-gthened American resolve to fight terrorism could have a significant impact on the Middle East, building sympathy for Israeli tactics and a coalition of interests among Israel and moderate Arab states, analysts say.
Speaking Sept. 12, Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out a much more aggressive American anti-terrorism strategy.
"I think when you are attacked by a terrorist and you know who the terrorist is and you can fingerprint back to the cause of the terror, you should respond," Powell said at a news conference.
The United States often has called on Israel to exercise restraint when it suffers Palestinian terrorist attacks, saying retaliation only escalates the cycle of violence and doesn't end conflict.
On Sept. 12, however, Powell took a different tone.
"If you are able to stop terrorist attacks, you should stop terrorist attacks."
President Bush on Sept. 12 called the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon an "act of war" and said the government "will use all our resources" in response.
It is too soon to determine the long-term effects of the attacks, experts say, but many believe they could substantially alter U.S. policy toward the Mideast.
For one, some experts say, it will be difficult for the State Department to condemn Israel's policy of targeted killings of Palestinian terrorists as stridently as in recent months.
"I think there will be additional understanding for what Israel is facing," said Lenny Ben-David, a former Israeli diplomat in Washington. "It is difficult for Americans to criticize Israel for going after the masterminds of suicide bombers when that is what the United States will have to do."
But Shibley Telhami, a professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland, said the response could be more complex.
"I think there is no question that at the popular level, there will be more sympathy" for Israel, Telhami said. At the governmental level, however, "it may not translate into empathy for either" Israel or the Palestinians.
Jon Alterman, an analyst with the U.S. Institute for Peace, said Israel's policy of targeted killing remains illegal under American law, and the State Department therefore will continue to condemn it.
But Ben-David said he thinks Americans will be swayed on a much more visceral level. "The scenes of Palestinians celebrating in the streets is not going to go over well with some in America," Ben-David said. "If ties (from the attacks) are shown to any of the Palestinian groups, then I think Arafat is going to be in a very different situation than he was under the Clinton administration or what he is in today."
Leon Fuerth, a national security adviser to former Vice President Al Gore, said the attack will force the Bush administration to reexamine many of its assumptions - such as the belief that the United States can take a more aloof posture in the Middle East and that terrorism can be fought through the courts rather than on the battlefield.
"The kinds of decisions the president makes are the kinds of things that might substantially change how he feels about what Israel does," said Fuerth, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University.
It is still unclear who is responsible for hijacking the airplanes that were used in the attacks, but media reports increasingly are focusing on Osama bin Laden, the renegade Saudi billionaire responsible for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
Edward Walker, a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, said fighting bin Laden and his followers will be harder than the Persian Gulf War against Iraq was 10 years ago, because bin Laden's Al-Qaida organization is widely dispersed and does not have a specific address.
"It is a small group of like-minded bigots that are motivated by anger and a mistaken concept of religion, and seek to destroy everything we stand for," said Walker, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and now president of the Middle East Institute.
Military efforts will not be sufficient against this threat, Walker said, because many U.S. allies unknowingly harbor branches of the group.
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