Challenge to Arafat

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More than three centuries ago, April 20, 1653, to be exact, Oliver Cromwell, who overthrew the British monarchy, marched into Westminster and told Parliament: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go."

Almost three centuries later, Cromwell's words were addressed by the Conservative politician Leo Amery in a speech on May 7, 1940, to the government of Neville Chamberlain, who stepped down three days later in favor of Winston Churchill's World War II coalition government.

So now it is time to address these same Cromwelllian words, as many Palestinians are saying, to the ignoble Yasser Arafat: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go."

Unfortunately, Mr. Arafat won't go even though he has lost the constituency he presumably represents. Mr. Arafat is today a dictator with limited power, an obstacle to peace and most of all, a financial manipulator whose legerdemain has allowed him to accumulate a Swiss bank-deposit fortune estimated to be in the billions. But he still believes as he told Oriana Fallaci in an interview 30 years ago:

"The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromises or mediators. ... We don't want peace. We want victory. Peace for us means Israel's destruction and nothing else." (The Washington Post, Nov. 10, 1974.)

Mr. Arafat could also have added the United States to his targets of destruction since his newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, said about September 11:

"The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of ... the Lebanese suicide bombers, who taught the U.S. Marines a tough lesson in [Beirut]. These suicide bombers are the salt of the Earth, the engines of history. ... They are the most honorable among us."

The European Union with its anti-Israel slant has involved itself in the Middle East. Isn't it time, then, for France, Germany and Italy, as the leading EU powers, to tell Mr. Arafat it's time to go? Hanan Ashrawi, veteran Palestinian legislator, has called on Mr. Arafat to end his "one-man show."

Ms. Ashrawi, a leading Palestinian Christian, said in an interview in a Swiss newspaper: "We should put this one-man-show behind us. Instead of talking about [individual] people, we should at last be talking about institutions and laws."

Ibrahim Hamami, a Palestinian writer living in London, has joined the chorus of Arafat critics in a vitriolic attack on the PA chairman, according to the Jerusalem Post. In an open letter to Mr. Arafat published on the Palestinian Web site Falasteen, Mr. Hamami urged Mr. Arafat to pack his bags and leave together with all his "corrupt cronies." Mr. Hamami said Mr. Arafat's "disastrous" policies have led the Palestinians from one catastrophe to another. "Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Lebanon and Jordan and now in Palestine because of your systematic corruption ever since you came to power in 1968," he said, addressing Mr. Arafat.