Hitting Terrorism's Roots

While the Bush Administration continues to build an international coalition it hopes will allow it to strike back effectively at those responsible for the September 11 attacks, three issues that helped set the stage for those atrocious crimes must be dealt with.

The first is the troublesome question of Israel and Palestine. Last year the two came within a hair's breadth of a land-for-peace deal. It failed, and Ariel Sharon's first instinct after the September 11 attacks was to cancel further meetings with the Palestinians--exactly the wrong instinct, and one now haltingly reversed by pressure from Shimon Peres and the White House. But until that deal is signed--and the two peoples accept the resulting settlement, however imperfect--there can be no peace or security for any of us. Such a deal may finally require a long-term multinational peacekeeping force placed between the two, but its cost, however great, is less than we will all bear if we do not find resolution to this central issue.

Second is the matter of governance. One hardly needs intimate familiarity with the human rights records of governments from Morocco in the West to Pakistan in the East to realize that many of America's allies and enemies alike fail the most minimal tests of democracy and human decency--and that they must change. This is not to advocate invasion, CIA subversion or Iraq-style embargoes but rather to support concerted multilateral action that expands pressures for political and social reform and that works with forces within those countries toward that end. Nothing will come quickly or without risk, but to leave intact the power arrangements of the Middle East--as we did in the wake of the Gulf War--invites the worst possible outcome. Terrorists are bred most easily among terrorized and humiliated peoples.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.