Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
The murder of an Israeli extremist by Palestinian extremists pushes both Sharon and Arafat to the brink -- and threatens to doom the peace process.
Oct 18, 2001 | When Palestinian assailants shot three bullets into the face and neck of Rehavam Zeevi as he was walking back from breakfast to his room at the Hyatt hotel in Jerusalem Wednesday morning, more than a right-wing Israeli minister was lost. The killing threatened to derail promising movements toward Middle East peace.
Just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon publicly declared he was ready to accept a Palestinian state if it met Israel's security requirements and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat reaped fresh international support for his cause, the killing of an extremist by extremists threatened to unleash a new round of bloody attacks and counterattacks. It cast a large question mark over Israel's policy of relative military restraint toward Palestinian civilians and targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants -- and an equally large question mark over Arafat's desire or ability to bring the killers to justice. It seemed likely to further destabilize Sharon's unity government -- with consequences that could push Israelis and Palestinians into even more polarized positions.
In an address to the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Sharon held Arafat personally responsible for the killings. "Only despicable terrorists can dream of assassinating an elected official in a democratic state," Mr. Sharon said. "Full responsibility falls squarely on Arafat, as someone who has controlled, and continues to control, terrorism."
In a move that recalled the American ultimatum to the Taliban over sheltering bin Laden, Israel laid down the law to Arafat. "The time for words has ended and the time for deeds has come. Israel demands the extradition of those responsible for today's assassination, and expects this to be carried out immediately," read a statement issued to Arafat after the Israeli security cabinet convened late Wednesday night. "We also demand that the terrorist organizations operating in the Palestinian areas be disarmed and dismantled. Arafat must not shelter them any longer. Failure to meet these demands ... will leave us no choice but to view the Palestinian Authority as an entity supporting and sponsoring terror and to act accordingly."
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical Palestinian group, said it had pulled the trigger on Zeevi in revenge for the deliberate killing of its leader Mustafa Zibri on Aug. 27 by an Israeli missile fired from a helicopter gunship. The Popular Front, a secular Marxist organization which opposes Arafat but has joined various militant factions in the current uprising, is responsible for bombings in Jerusalem and other Israeli cities in the past year.
The murder of Zeevi, a sharp-jawed hard-liner known ironically as Gandhi, in the carpeted safety of a hotel corridor, sent shock waves through the Israeli establishment and general public. Apart from Wednesday's killing and the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by an Israeli extremist who opposed the leader's peace-building policies, there have been no other political assassinations in the Jewish state's history. (Israel's ambassador in Britain, Shlomo Argov, was seriously wounded in a 1982 assassination attempt, an event that served as a pretext for Israel's invasion of Lebanon.) Among Israelis, there was a sense that an unacceptable line had been crossed.
Arafat, who controls part of the West Bank and Gaza -- the exact nature of his control is a point of controversy -- sought immediately to cool tempers. The Palestinian Authority put out statements condemning all assassinations -- "even in the case of Rehavam Zeevi, the radical one" -- urging Israel to drop its policy of targeted killings and reaffirming its commitment to implementing a tentative cease-fire brokered last month. Arafat ordered that Zeevi's murderers be arrested. A Popular Front spokesman in the West Bank was apprehended (he was later released), while Palestinians bracing for possible Israeli retaliatory strikes evacuated police stations and government offices.
But Israeli officials across the political spectrum, who are accustomed to Arafat making only token moves against terror, demanded that he hand over the killers to Israel -- something Palestinians have always refused to do -- or face harsh consequences.
Just how both Sharon and Arafat would respond to the murder was unclear. Both leaders were under extreme pressure -- forced to navigate once again between the demands of extremists and diplomatic realities.
Looming down the road was the most disturbing possibility that the advent of a more conservative Israeli government, and/or a major Israeli military response, would strengthen the position of Islamic and nationalist Palestinian extremists and weaken Arafat's grip on power.
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