Stardate 20020125.0940

(On Screen): Part of game theory is to analyze the position and potential strategies of your opponent. When you're negotiating, you have to realize that he is making rational decisions. Every choice has both costs and benefits. If he is rational, what he will do is to evaluate the cost and benefit of each alternative, and then choose the one which yields the best benefit-to-cost result.

So you can try to influence him in two ways, First, if there's a choice you want him to make you can try to raise the benefit of that alternative. In its negotiations with Arafat, Israel tried that in 2000. The Barak proposal offered the Palestinians the best deal that was politically possible in Israel, and it was a very good one indeed. And yet, it apparently wasn't good enough, so Arafat turned it down.

Now Israel and the US are using the other approach. They are trying to make the cost to both Arafat and the Palestinian Authority of all other alternatives as high as possible.

The Israelis have surrounded Arafat and refuse to let him travel. The US is doing its best to cut support for Arafat among the "moderate" Arab nations: it has given evidence to Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia that the Palestinian Authority was deliberately involved in the failed attempt to smuggle weapons into Gaza. (This, by the way, is a direct violation of the Oslo accords that Arafat signed.) It hasn't been formally given to Syria or Iran, but they'll get it indirectly. And it appears to be working.

And the US is now considering a complete cut-off of all diplomatic contact with Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.

What we want is for Arafat to actually use the full capability of the Palestinian Authority to crush Hamas, the PFLP, and the other Palestinian radical groups who have been responsible for the attacks on Israel. Until now, Arafat has been afraid of doing so for fear of the backlash from those groups and their supporters. To make him do so anyway, it is necessary to make the price of not cracking down even higher. We want him to fear us more than he fears the PFLP.

There are two alternatives here. While Arafat is surrounded, he still retains the ability to communicate. Israel wants him to still have the ability to communicate with the forces of the PA, because they still retain the hope that he will finally use his full capabilities to crack down on the terrorists.

But at some point, if these efforts fail, then a decision will be made that it is time for the Arafat era to end. That is the final threat. In addition to the pressure already brought to bear, there is the clear implication that he could be killed. If Israel wants him dead, he'll be gone in 24 hours. He does not have the ability to hide or to defend against the force that Israel could bring to bear. Until now, the only thing restraining Israel was the US, and it's clear that the US is trying to send the signal to Arafat that we too are fed up.

Arafat says he's willing to die for the cause. When the time comes, he may have no choice in the matter. But I do not believe he is eager to die. Like so many petty tyrants, he's quite willing to let his followers die for him. But I don't believe that he himself is eager to die, nor in fact even willing to do so if it can be avoided.

In the short term, it is clear that Zinni will not be returning to the region in the immediate future. There is no point in talks because there is nothing to talk about, and because you cannot negotiate with a gutless liar.