Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008
With at least 24 Palestinians dead and several West Bank and Gaza cities under Israeli control, the fiercest military assault since 1994 shows no signs of abating.
Oct 22, 2001 | Israel was outraged Wednesday after Palestinian militants gunned down a cabinet minister in a Jerusalem hotel. Since then, it has unleashed its wrath, launching the largest military campaign against the Palestinians since the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) was established in parts of the West Bank and Gaza in 1994.
Tanks have rolled into half a dozen West Bank cities since Wednesday, surrounding or penetrating them, taking up strategic positions meant to besiege the towns and intimidate their inhabitants with heavy gunfire, killing at least two dozen Palestinians. The raids were both punitive and preventive, according to Israeli officials, who said they had no other choice but to take action against Palestinian terrorists in the wake of Wednesday's high-profile murder.
"As long as terrorism continues without arrests [by the Palestinian Authority]," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at a Sunday cabinet meeting, "we will make the arrests; if there are no counterterrorist actions, we will act to prevent terrorist actions."
On the ground, the raids also seemed brutal and indiscriminate, hitting Palestinian militants and one sought-after gunman, but also Palestinian policemen and more than a dozen civilians. Since Wednesday, Israeli troops have killed at least 24 people, including a 12-year old schoolgirl in Jenin and a 17-year-old altar boy on Bethlehem's Manger Square as he was exiting Nativity Church after Saturday vespers. Israeli soldiers have also been wounded, some seriously, by armed Palestinians; one has died.
By Sunday night, tanks had moved deep into Bethlehem, just a few hundred yards from the spot believed to be the birthplace of Jesus. A shopping center was aflame, and there was heavy fighting near Bethlehem's main hospital. Helicopters kept up a sinister drone overhead and Israeli troops, who took over houses and posted snipers on roofs in the Bethlehem area, were maintaining a climate of fear. "We can't go outside -- they're shooting without reason. They are so furious," said Rose Saqa, an English teacher in Beit Jala, a Christian town adjacent to Bethlehem, reached by phone. "In August, Israeli tanks came for two days and left, but now it's really war. No one knows when it will end."
The significant military escalation could mark a turning point in a conflict the American administration has tried to keep on a low flame since Sept. 11, in an effort to placate the moderate Arab states that are key allies in the U.S.-led war against terrorism.
The U.S. State Department called the incursions unhelpful on Friday, saying they complicate the situation and should be halted. Israel, however, did not seem ready to heed calls for moderation, and has seemed to respond instead to the public cries for revenge issued after the assassination of Tourism Minister Rechavam Zeevi (known by his nickname "Gandhi").
In a telling example of blood lust, Zeevi's son publicly challenged Ariel Sharon as he was standing glumly by the graveside of his ultranationalist friend and cabinet member at a packed military cemetery: "Arik [Sharon], avenge as Gandhi would have avenged your death. And go back to being the leader we once knew," he said in a public speech.
Sharon, the "leader we once knew," indeed seemed headed for a showdown with his arch-enemy Yasser Arafat. It's almost 20 years since Sharon, as defense minister in Menachem Begin's government, bombed Beirut and took troops into Lebanon in an effort to eliminate the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The day after Zeevi's murder, he was quoted by Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily, as saying , "As far as I'm concerned, the era of Arafat is over."
But Sharon faces constraints on retaliation within his own government. Although there have been disagreements between government hawks and doves since Sharon took power in March, those differences reached breaking point this week, with several Labor Party ministers threatening to resign if the current wide-scale incursions turn into a creeping war and reoccupation of the West Bank.
The lack of consensus was also obvious when the government decided to send top Israeli officials to the United States on a public relations mission, but could not agree on what the contents of Israel's message should be. It will be interesting to see whether Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, defends Israel's wide-scale military raids when he meets Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington on Monday, given his extreme reticence to embrace martial goals. While Sharon has been saying that he is "through with Arafat," Peres said on Israeli television Saturday night that he believes Arafat is the only realistic partner Israel has.
"Should we topple the Palestinian Authority, there will be a blood bath in the territories," he warned. "I told Arik [Sharon]: You say there is no such thing as good terrorism and bad terrorism. That is true, but by the same token there is no such thing as good occupation and bad occupation," said Peres to Israel's Channel 2. "No one in the world will be prepared to accept the continued occupation of the territories." But he dismissed a call from a Labor Party colleague to resign from Sharon's government.
On Sunday, Sharon sought to modify the impression that he was seeking to topple the P.A. and eliminate Arafat. "Israel has no interest in remaining in places where the army has entered," Sharon said at the weekly cabinet meeting. "The amount of time the army stays in these areas depends, to a large extent, on Arafat and the actions he takes to prevent terrorism."
Mindful of the Israeli mood, Arafat quickly condemned the killing of Zeevi and offered to arrest the culprits. His men rounded up members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the radical organization that took responsibility for Zeevi's death, mostly in Gaza where the assailants are unlikely to be. But the Palestinian Authority refused to extradite any suspects and rejected an Israeli ultimatum issued Thursday at dawn that it do so.
"The ultimatum is an Israeli blackmail attempt, not one that seeks to find a solution to the present crisis," said Palestinian Minister of Information Yasser Abed Rabbo at a press conference the same day. "We call on the international community to intervene. We believe that Sharon's priority is to continue his war against the Palestinian people and to destroy the Palestinian Authority. We trust the world will not allow this to continue," he said. "After all this is not going to be 1982 for Mr. Sharon."
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