In its official statement about its vague decision to “remove” Yasser Arafat, the Israeli government referred to him as a political problem, an “obstacle” to peace, and did not emphasize the thousand dead Israelis, the thousands of bereaved, maimed, and traumatized ones. Jerusalem apparently did not think mentioning the latter aspect would impress anyone much, whereas the notion of Arafat as a diplomatic glitch might at least have some exculpatory value for the dark deed Israel was hinting at.

But “the world” jumped to Arafat’s defense anyway. Everyone—the Arabs, the Europeans, the U.S., the Israeli Labor Party—concurred that there is something necessary and desirable about having Arafat sitting and functioning in his compound a few miles north of Jerusalem, and that anything done to disrupt that state of affairs would be both unwise and reprehensible.

It’s nothing new. Someday historians will look back at our era and wonder how this baleful figure was able to pursue a career for four decades as an arch-terrorist, dictator, liar, and thief without ever being stopped or punished. The reason, they may discover, is that he meant too many things to too many people, that he fulfilled certain needs in the “civilized” world that made his presence too precious to dispense with...