Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
Desperation fuels an ominous round of fighting in the Holy Land. Has the Mideast peace process finally blown apart?
Oct 3, 2000 | For six days now, stones, bullets, rockets and firebombs have been pummeling senseless a shocked Holy Land. As in a slowly unfolding natural catastrophe, each day produces its crop of corpses and wounded bodies, while people wonder out loud whether this quake could be the much-awaited "big one."
"Everybody just wants it to blow to hell," said Muna Muhaisen, a Palestinian journalist, expressing the kind of suicidal desperation that is fueling the uprising. "People are so fed up."
Relief came and went Tuesday in the form of a tentative morning cease-fire -- the third in so many days -- broken by new afternoon exchanges of gunfire. With the mediation of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have agreed to meet in Paris on Wednesday to reach a more lasting truce. But even then, the quiet could be only temporary.
Over the long bloody weekend, which coincided with the Jewish New Year, more than 50 people were killed -- the overwhelming majority of them Palestinians under the age of 30 -- and thousands were injured. The weaponry graduated from slingshots and police batons to live ammunition, gunship helicopters and anti-tank missiles. And, for the first time, the clashes spread beyond the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza to the heart of Israeli towns.
The stakes of this latest outbreak of violence -- the most deadly since 1996 -- seemed higher than ever as the clashes threatened not only the long-suffering peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians but the survival of Israel itself.
Analysts had long predicted that Palestinian disappointment with the slow pace and limited benefits of the peace talks, begun seven years ago, would eventually wear the patience of Palestinians down and bring back the violence of the intifada, the popular uprising that raged between 1987 and 1993. The failure of the Camp David summit last July gave rise to a fresh round of doomsday prophecies: Experts warned anything could set the streets on fire. And burn they did.
The explosion was triggered by the visit last Thursday of the right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon to a site held sacred and vehemently claimed by both Muslims and Jews. The Al-Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock -- the splendid golden dome of Jerusalem postcards -- are built on what Jews consider the remnants of their first and second Temple.
Who will have sovereignty over the esplanade known by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount is one of the most sensitive issues being discussed in the current peace negotiations. In this context, Sharon's theatrical appearance on the esplanade used for Muslim prayers, accompanied by television crews and hundreds of Israeli riot police, was meant to reaffirm Israeli claims to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem as a whole. Not surprisingly, Sharon's cowboy approach to diplomacy was seen as an outrageous act of provocation by Palestinians and Muslims at large.
The visit was enough to set the familiar cycle of Palestinian rock-throwing, deadly Israeli fire and mass funeral fury into high gear.
The Israeli establishment put the blame at Arafat's door, claiming his security services orchestrated the riots, busing people to sites of confrontation and, on several occasions, opening fire on Israeli troops.
Palestinian officials, in turn, blamed Israel's use of excessive force in dealing with the public protest: In addition to using potent tear gas, rubber-coated bullets (that blind and occasionally kill) and live ammunition, the Israeli security forces fired rockets from helicopter gunships and deployed army tanks around volatile West Bank towns. The disproportionate show of force shocked many Palestinians into joining the protests and triggered an escalation of violence throughout the occupied territories.
But the blame game is in some ways irrelevant. "How it started is not important," said Muhaisen. "People are looking for any chance to let off steam. People are not fighting for violence's sake. They're fighting for a decent life and for an honorable peace. They are doing this for their freedom."
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