No Exceptions for
Israel
by Edward S. Walker
The Washington Post
August 21, 2001, Tuesday
Despite Ari Fleischer's best efforts, Vice President Dick Cheney has now fueled
suspicions in much of the Arab world that the president has given a green light
to Israel's policy of assassinating suspected Palestinian terrorists.
Israeli friends have confirmed that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came away from
his first meeting with President Bush firmly convinced that targeted killings
had won White House acquiescence. In that context, the vice president's recent
remarks are, unfortunately, consistent with a path the president had already
embarked upon. Cheney said: "If you've got an organization that has
plotted or is plotting some kind of suicide bomber attack, for example, and they
[the Israelis] have hard evidence of who it is and where they're located, I
think there's some justification in their trying to protect themselves by
preempting."
To date, the White House's equivocal
public criticism of these acts only lends credence to the belief that Sharon has
a green light. If Sharon has misconstrued President Bush's intentions, then it
is incumbent on the vice president to explain his position or to issue a
retraction. Anyone can understand the desire and duty of Israel's prime minister
to do all he can to stop acts of terror from harming Israelis and other
nationalities. I lived in Israel for six years, and I can empathize with the
terrible fear that my friends there face for their families and children. And
they will have to continue to make very difficult choices. We cannot and should
not make their choices for them.
But we need to be crystal clear about where we stand. Otherwise, this atmosphere
of escalating violence and diminishing trust will put not only both parties but
also the United States (as the supposed honest broker) on a perilous course.
Equivocating on our principles of due process, human rights and opposition to
assassination based on evidence gathered behind closed doors and never subject
to review is hardly conducive to our role as a mediator, let alone our national
heritage. I have been on the receiving end of intelligence based on paid
informants, coercive interrogation and often-cryptic monitored messages. All too
often it points a finger but offers little irrefutable proof, the sort of proof
courts of law require in order to legally indict or convict someone suspected of
a crime.
Are we now prepared to except Israel from the norms we rightfully expect from
other societies? When posted to the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and elsewhere, I
was instructed time after time to challenge governments on security courts,
in-camera trials and extrajudicial killings.
I recall in particular one occasion when I had to challenge in the strongest
terms the alleged use of extrajudicial killing in an Arab country that was
engaged in a bloody fight in the mid-'90s against fundamentalist terrorism. This
was despite the fact that innocent civilians in no small numbers were dying
there at the hands of terrorists.
The question must certainly be asked why our vice president thinks that
assassination may be understandable in some cases for Israel, when it was not
understandable in any case for an Arab country. To leave the White House
position in doubt is a disservice to every American diplomat who has in the past
and will in the future deliver the principled message to his or her hosts that
trial, conviction and death by intelligence are unacceptable.
I served my country in the military and Foreign Service for 34 years. I have
always taken pride in the fact that the United States holds itself to a higher
standard. Because of this, I was particularly pleased that George W. Bush came
into office vowing to apply U.S. standards, values and principles to our foreign
policy. He said so and I believed him. Has that pledge been forgotten? Or have
our standards changed?
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The writer, a retired career ambassador, is president of the Middle East
Institute.