Tillerson’s
Terrorism Problem
By Michael Rubin
Commentary Magazine
March 31, 2017
Over at the Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo has the
scoop that the Trump administration will welcome. He wrote:
The State Department confirmed to the Washington Free
Beacon late Thursday that it intends to permit Jibril Rajoub, secretary of
the Fatah Central Committee, to participate in meetings with U.S. officials next
week, despite his repeated calls for terrorism against Israel and a 15-year
stint in Israeli prison for committing terror acts. A State Department official
who spoke to the Free Beacon acknowledged Rajoub’s radical rhetoric,
but maintained he can serve a positive role in peace talks set to take place
between Trump administration officials and a Palestinian delegation including
Mahmoud Abbas… Legal experts claim that Rajoub’s endorsement of terrorism
should prevent him from obtaining a U.S. visa under current laws. U.S. law bars
entrance to individuals who “endorse or espouse terrorist activity.” The
Trump administration has no plans to acquiesce to this call, according to a
State Department spokesman. “The U.S. government does not endorse every
statement Mr. Rajoub has made, but he has long been involved in Middle East
peace efforts, and has publicly supported a peaceful, non-violent solution to
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the official told the Free Beacon. “We
continue to press Fatah officials, including Rajoub himself, to refrain from any
statements or actions that could be viewed as inciting or legitimizing others
use of violence.”
As the quip apocryphally attributed to Albert Einstein
goes, “insanity is repeatedly doing the same action but expecting different
results each time.” If that’s true, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson or
those diplomats whispering into his ear should check in with their shrink.
Let’s put aside the irony of having to pair the
insistence that Rajoub supports “a peaceful, non-violent solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict” with the need to press him “to refrain from
any statements or actions” that could legitimize violence. Perhaps a man who
threw a grenade at a bus, sentenced to life, and then has been re-arrested
multiple times after subsequent early releases hasn’t really reformed?
Likewise, perhaps Rajoub’s vehement opposition as head of the Palestinian
Olympic Committee to a moment of silence for the Israeli athletes murdered
during the 1972 Munich Olympics suggests that he really hasn’t embraced the
spirit of peace or truly rejected terrorism?
The State Department has a long history of reaching out to
terrorists. In Dancing
with the Devil, my history of U.S. diplomacy with rogue regimes and
terrorist groups, I document many instances of U.S. attempts to negotiate with
terrorist groups or to use them as intermediaries. It’s a strategy that dates
back to Jimmy Carter’s desire to utilize Palestinian terrorists as
intermediaries to win the release of American hostages in Iran to then-Senator
John Kerry’s willingness to pass messages for Hamas to numerous officials who
jumped on the Hezbollah-is-legitimate bandwagon. In each case, U.S. diplomats
legitimized terrorists but did not achieve their prime objective.
A far better strategy would be to utilize leverage—the
U.S. government pays several hundred million dollars of it—in order to present
the Palestinians with a stark choice: Completely renounce and abandon terrorism
as required by the Oslo Accords or lose everything. There should be no middle
ground. What Tillerson proposes to do, perhaps at the urging of the White House,
but which he legally has the power to stop is nothing less than a quixotic
effort and an insult to every American victim of terrorism.