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Three years ago, Senator Christopher Dodd delivered a nationally televised speech on behalf of the Democratic Party opposing proposed aid to the government of El Salvador. "If Central America were not racked with poverty . . . hunger . . . injustice," argued Dodd, "there would be no revolution." That is the premise. And the conclusion? "Unless those oppressive conditions change" -- Can they? Can the U.S. will them to? -- "the region will continue to seethe with revolution." The choice? Either "to move with the tide of history" or "stand against it."
Today that argument is hardly heard anymore in the Central American context. Something happened. The Salvadoran guerrillas are in retreat, and yet, mirabile dictu, root causes remain. The tides have changed, while poverty and misery endure. As for Nicaragua, those most habituated to the use of the root cause argument are contra opponents. They are hardly likely to invoke it to explain -- i.e., legitimize -- the contra cause.
One place where the root cause idea does survive is the Middle East. The issue is terrorism, and the argument is familiar: Isn't the best way to fight terror to go after the root causes? Counterterrorism, embargoes, threats and, finally, air raids treat only symptoms. Band-Aids on a wound. (The metaphors mix.) Why not attack the root causes? In the context of the Middle East, that means "solving the Palestinian problem." Accommodation between Israel and the Palestinians. The way out of the nightmare. Jews and Arabs living together in historic Palestine. An end to war. Peace as the cure for terror.
It is an honorable dream. And it is based on a clear logic: since much of the terrorism in the Middle East is committed either by Palestinians or by others acting in their name, why not solve the terrorism problem by solving their problem?
Unfortunately -- unfortunately for Palestinians, Israelis and assorted innocents who wander into the crossfire -- the logic fails. To understand why, one must start by asking, Who are the terrorists? The major sponsors of Middle East terror are Iran, Syria and Libya. And its major practitioners are Islamic fundamentalists, pro-Syrian nationalists and Palestinian extremists. These groups and states are distinguished not just by their choice of means but by the nature of their end. And their end is not peace with Israel. It is peace with no Israel.
The various terror groups have different versions of the end of days, but none include a Jewish state. The Achille Lauro hijackers, for example, issued a communique in Cyprus saying they had planned to land at "Ashdod harbor in occupied Palestine." Ashdod is not in the West Bank or Gaza. It is within pre-1967 Israel. If you consider Ashdod "occupied," every inch of Israel is occupied.
For such people, the only peaceful solution to the Middle East problem is a peace of the grave, a Zionist grave. Any settlement short of that will leave the terrorists unappeased. It will not solve the terrorists' problem. It thus does not solve the terrorism problem.