A year after Ariel Sharon’s visit to Temple Mount, Israel and the Occupied Territories are in chaos. Sharon’s ?licence to kill? policy has backfired taking the cycle of violence out of control and America is no where to be seen. Adel Darwish reports.

The first weekend of August will be remembered as the one where the vicious cycle of violence between the Palestinians and the Israelis seemed to spin out of control, even by the tragically mad standard of violence to which the area has become accustomed over the past 12 months. That Sunday a ?cool Palestinian’, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, stepped out of his car outside the Israeli Ministry of Defence in the heart of Tel Aviv and calmly sprayed the street with automatic rifle fire wounding 10, mainly soldiers on their lunch break, before being shot by traffic police.

Whether Jerusalem resident Ali Al Julani — who held no previous recorded hatred of Israel — according to an Israeli intelligence source — acted alone or on behalf of some organisation, is not known. Most observers link the incident to events in Ramallah.

Marwan Barghouti, one of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s, closest aids and leader of the Fateh movement in the West Bank, narrowly escaped an alleged assassination attempt by Israel. A missile fired from a tank inside an ?illegal’ Jewish settlement was aimed at his convoy of cars in Ramallah, badly injuring his bodyguard. The Israelis denied the assassination charge against Barghouti, saying they had targeted the injured man, bodyguard Muhind Abu Halawa, who they accused of masterminding attacks against them. However, Israeli officials then indirectly suggested that Mr Barghouti himself would be next by telling the press he was behind the violence of the Intifada.

Later in the day Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli woman Tehiya Lomberg, and wounded four other people near the settlement of Alfe Menashe. Then an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at a Palestinian police station, while Palestinians lobbed a couple of mortars on a settlement.

A week or so later bloodied and dismembered bodies littered the Sbarro pizza restaurant in the heart of Jerusalem, where 15 people died and 90 were injured, some of them critically. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. There was no sympathy from the Palestinian Authority of Yasser Arafat: ?We hold the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, fully responsible for what happened. The assassinations, the killings and the terrorism that he has practised and escalated in recent weeks led to this result?, it said in a statement. And so the cycle of tit-for-tat- violence continues with each side blaming the other, casting itself in the role of victim; while senior figures on both sides insist they want the violence to subside.

The rest of the world a week earlier condemned the policy of assassinating senior Palestinian leaders and Hamas activists. The US State Department, the British Foreign Office and the EU all issued strong statements of condemnation against what Israel called ?targeted killing’, when it moved from murdering individuals accused of acts of terror, to assassinating political leaders. American made helicopters fired SMART missiles at an office used by Hamas — in a residential block of flats — killing two Hamas leaders and four others, including a journalist who was interviewing them and two young children were who walking past the building with their mother. Mr Sharon’s office, in an unusual step, claimed responsibility for the attack.

After the strike on Mr Barghouti’s convoy Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon appeared to defy world opinion by telling Fox News he would stick to his policy of assassinations, which he calls ?pinpoint preventive actions against terrorists,’ or ? targeted killing’. The same evening, Israeli officials announced the names of seven men who are on their wanted list for supposed involvement in terrorism, past and present on national television. The strong implication being that they could be next.

Sharon’s strategy is driving the Palestinian masses into the bosom of extremists

The majority of Israelis (more than two thirds in the latest poll) seem to support Mr Sharon’s tough tactics, even though it is clear that such assassinations will only result in revenge attacks from Palestinians.

Over 2000 Israelis marched on the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv. Demanding a two state solution, demonstrators called for an end to assassinations and an early start to the dismantling of settlements, which many see as the root of the problem. Sadly, there were no marches in support of peace on the other side. There has been a total absence of Arab voices calling for an end to violence, indeed across the Arab nation students and activists appear to want war with Israel.

Behind closed doors, senior British and European diplomats were having harsh words with Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and several high level Israeli diplomats. They warned the Israeli delegation that Sharon’s assassination policy and his latest refusal to allow foreign observers to monitor a cease-fire with the Palestinians is not only isolating Israel internationally, but also endangering Israeli citizens, since assassinations will only lead to further revenge attacks by Palestinians.

Such sentiments were expressed in editorials in most western press — even by columnists generally known for their sympathy towards Israel, all of whom questioned Mr Sharon’s logic. How will selecting ?potential terrorists’ for assasination prevent future attacks on Israel? they asked, arguing that such attacks by Israel only make Hamas and other militant groups more popular among Arabs.

The missile attack on Mr Barghouti’s convoy of cars and Israeli hints that he would be a target when journalists were told Barghouti was accused of organising violent campaigns against Israel, is a case in point. When, in the early 1990s, Mr Arafat was trying to sell the peace accords to his people and facing fierce — often violent — resistance from Hamas and other hardline nationalists and Islamists, it was Mr Barghouti as his lieutenant in the West Bank, who was canvassing support for the peace accords and using his organisation and influence to resist the hardliners.

Thus by targeting leaders like Mr Barghouti Mr Sharon’s short sighted strategy — namely pressurising Yasser Arafat to the negotiating table — is weakening Mr Arafat’s political structure and, inevitably, driving the Palestinian masses into the bosom of extremists. Mr Sharon is either blind to this consequence, or due to his lack of clear policy, totally desperate to appear to be doing something. Worse still is the possibility he is opting for the ?Samson choice’: ?If I am going down, the whole world will go down with me.’

Meanwhile America is nowhere to be seen, as many doubt whether the current Bush administration has any coherent policy on the Israeli-Palestinian situation — or on the Middle East in general, at a time when America’s role and leadership is needed more than any other time since the Gulf War.

Many international diplomats believe that both Palestinians and Israelis lack a responsible leadership. The subject was touched upon in early August by Daniel Kurtzer, the newly appointed American Ambassador to Israel, in a telling interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.

?I don’t think anyone knows the answer to ?who is Arafat?’ I don’t know either,? said Mr Kurtzer , himself is an interesting figure; a professional diplomat, an Orthodox Jew and previously an Ambassador to Egypt. He thinks that Mr Arafat’s position must be clarified before he gets an invitation to meet the President at the White House.

Does Arafat want peace? Has he really given up his original ambition of destroying the state of Israel? ?These are questions on the minds of every Israeli, but they are also questions in the minds of US Secretary of State Colin Powell and President George Bush as well as Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney?, Mr Kurtzer told the paper.

There seems to be a serious and growing split between the State Department and the Pentagon

Equally, the Arabs do not trust Ariel Sharon. They regard him as responsible for the massacres in Lebanon; they detest him as a war criminal, with whom it is impossible to make peace. His policy of targeted killing makes Arabs see him as, quite simply, a murderer.

While both the Israelis and the Palestinians seem to lack proper leadership worthy of 21st century challenges, there seems to be a serious and growing split between the State Department and the Pentagon over Israel. The deterioration of the situation in August was mirrored in Washington.

When the Israeli attacks killed Hamas leaders and two children General Powell condemned the policy but Mr Cheney, has virtually come out in support of it. The gap in the policy of the Bush Administration has widened into a chasm.

The State Department strongly deplored the attack targeting Hamas political leaders as ?highly provocative’ and a ?dangerous escalation’. Mr Cheney, who supports the hawkish position of Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, told Fox News: ?I think there’s some justification in their trying to protect themselves by pre-empting.? Two days later came the Israeli missile strike against Mr Barghouti’s convoy of cars. While Mr Sharon might not have been directly encouraged by Mr Cheney statement, the confused messages from Washington did little to help the situation, which seemed to get out of hand (six attacks from each side within 72 hours of the statement in addition to two long raving battles on the outskirts of Jerusalem).

Public support in Israel for Mr Sharon’s policy, reflects the profound anxiety that the Intifada will continue to be intensified as well as a deep distrust of Mr Arafat as a ?man to make peace,’. Language used by Palestinians and the Arab press leaves the Israelis with an impression that even the more moderate Palestinians, and the rest of the Arabic speaking nations, have the ultimate intention of destroying the state of Israel. On both sides, fear seems to play as large a part as hatred. Both sides, for different reasons look towards Washington to step in and provide some guidance, if not leadership in the now late and lamented, President Bill Clinton style.

So far the Bush administration alienates the Arabs by continuing to deny Mr Arafat access to the president

The difference of policy between the State Department and the Pentagon is partly personal and partly psychological. As far back as the Gulf War, Mr Cheney, then the Secretary of Defence, and General Powell, then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff found themselves in disagreement. In Middle Eastern speak, Mr Cheney was a hawk and General Powell a dove. In politics, Colin Powell is a liberal Republican and Mr Cheney is a conservative, though a pragmatic one. Their present dispute also represents the natural difference between the diplomacy of the State Department and the Pentagon’s military view of the world. The two departments have different professional functions, traditions and temperaments.

The Pentagon, Rumsfeld and Cheney believe Israel should keep up the pressure on Mr Arafat in order to force the Palestinians back to the conference table. They believe in the now dated CIA style of targeted killings as a legitimate response and an effective form of pressure. This is also evident in Israeli army psychological as well as physical warfare against the Palestinian leaders.

There is no early prospect of peace; indeed there may be no peace until Mr Arafat and Mr Sharon have both been replaced

So far the Bush administration alienates the Arabs by continuing to deny Mr Arafat access to the president. This contradicts the policy of the Clinton years when Mr Arafat was a frequent and welcome visitor to the White House, even though the administration continued America’s historic support of Israel. While Mr Sharon has made more than one visit to the White House, Mr Arafat has not been invited to see the president since he was inaugurated in January, as the current administration believe this to be a way of pressurising the Palestinian leader to call off the Intifada and re-enter peace talks. The White House boycott and Israel’s targeted killing can be seen as complementary means to achieving this end. Regardless of Washington’s real motive — which is to eventually resolve the problem — this short sighted and rather naîve approach has played into the hands of the conspiracy theorists in the Arab media strengthening the view of ?a Zionist-American conspiracy against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.’

In addition, experts in the State Department are sceptical of the effectiveness of such policy as General Powell is worried about the impact of Israeli actions on ?other friendly’ countries in the region.

Meanwhile, the State Department believes in ?crisis management’ to prevent an very bad situation slipping further out of control. The Department of Defence believes in ?crisis resolution’, hoping that pressure will force Arafat to end the Intifada and go back to peace talks.

The State Department’s long term policy is based on ?conflict resolution by management of crisis’ until the circumstances are ripe to go for a settlement. It is concerned to keep both sides talking, and to try, if possible, to prevent a further escalation of hostilities. World opinion, other than that of the United States and of Middle Eastern countries, is largely ineffectual, but attitudes in the moderate Middle Eastern countries are very important. The moderate governments are all under pressure from angry people in their own streets.

In these circumstances, the State Department analysis seems the more convincing of the two. It is not a question of peace versus war. Thus, given Ambassador Kurtez analysis of the ?irresponsible leadership on both side’ and the perception of the ? other side’s leaders’ with suspicion; there is no early prospect of peace; indeed there may be no peace until Mr Arafat and Mr Sharon have both been replaced by leaders with ?less blood on their hands,’ as each side now only see ? the blood on the hands of the other side’s leaders.’



Digging In Or Bailing Out
From Mariam Shahin in Ramallah

After the first year of the Al Aqsa Intifada, some in the Palestinian Authority (PA) have sent their families and fortunes abroad, while a new generation of leaders waits its turn to be either assassinated or inherit the throne to the Palestinian revolution. In the meantime Israel digs in its heels and takes its war of intimidation into newsrooms and the international arena, pressuring the world to change laws and rewrite defining history.

The Palestinians make ?inhuman? neighbours, said Israeli head of parliament cum dove politician Avraham Burg in an interview with a major American television network in August. The comment naturally stunned members of the Palestinian government and would be peace-niks. The Labour Party strongman they had hoped would one day be Israel’s prime minister and their peace partner had just called their entire nation ?inhuman?. Furthermore, he added, ?You would not want your daughter to marry one of them?. This would be a natural conclusion since ?they? are inhuman, however, the second insult slighted the collective Palestinian ego almost as much as the first.

So where is one to go when the peace-niks on the other side have called you inhuman. It takes a whole re-evaluation of the situation, Saleh Raafat, head of the pro-Oslo Fida Party concluded. ?The last 50 years have been one type of struggle and it seems now we have entered a new phase... or possibly it is a new struggle altogether.?

Three Palestinian women wanted to bring Sharon to trial for crimes against humanity

Indeed in the era of Internet, image creation and cloning, technology will play a big part in helping to write history and the dissemination of information. Israel has already begun its campaign with early successes in the offing. The media, the legislatures and the legal system appear to be the targets in the first phase of Ariel Sharon’s PR campaign to convince the international community and certainly his own constituents that he is right to be on the Right.

The first in a series of PR incidents was when three Palestinian women from the Shatila Refugee camp in Lebanon headed to Brussels, Belgium in May with their Lebanese Lawyer, Shibli Mallat. The three women, represented by Mallat, wanted to bring Sharon to trial for crimes against humanity, based on his detrimental behaviour as commander of the Israeli forces during the massacre at the refugee camps in 1982. In an unexpected move Sharon has not ignored the lawsuit but appointed a legal team to represent him at the trial. The Belgians have agreed to hear the suit as a first step.

Sharon and company had lobbied the government in Brussels, which duly said it would try to influence the independent courts. Sharon also pushed for the introduction of internationally binding legislation that would make it impossible for heads of state to be tried for crimes against humanity. If he succeeds, then he and another icon warmonger, Saddam Hussein, who is also facing similar legal proceedings, would be exempt from such charges until they were out of office.

In another ?European incident? a former Shin Beit (Israeli internal security) agent, Carmi Gillon was appointed as Israel’s ambassador to Denmark amid protest. Initially human rights groups and the Danish legislature were aghast that Gillon, who publicly promoted torture as a means of combatting ?terrorism’, would be appointed as a ?diplomat’ and wanted him kept away from Copenhagen. After immense diplomatic pressure and what appears to be arm-twisting by the Israelis and their allies, Denmark decided to welcome Gillon. An investigation into the policies he promoted while a high-ranking Israeli security agent has been opened however.

Israeli officials created diplomatic havoc and threatened closure

At a World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa some 100 participating countries towed the Israeli and US line and duly dropped any reference equating Zionism as a form of racism from UN documents

?Hopefully, the text(s) will be cleansed of any reference that brings back the memory of the infamous UN resolution equating Zionism with racism,? Yaakov Levy, the Israeli delegate to the conference told the Associated Press agency. The US went as far as threatening to boycott the Durban meeting unless the anti-Zionism words were removed.

In what must have been an unprecedented action on the part of the London based British Broadcasting Corporation, (BBC), news editors sent out a circular to all their staff in London and the Middle East to stop calling the murder of Palestinians by Israeli hit squads assassinations, rather they should be called ?targeted killings? read the circular, which stunned most of the BBC staff.

The decision came, after an almost four month long row between the BBC, which aired an investigative background programme, on its series Panorama about the role that Sharon played in the Sabra and Shatila Massacres in Lebanon in 1982, and Israeli officials. At the time Israeli officials created diplomatic havoc and threatened the BBC office in Jerusalem with the possibility of closure.

According to BBC insiders Israeli officials had several ?lunches? with BBC’s Vin Ray in the weeks leading to the decision to change the terminology the BBC uses vis-a-vis Israeli actions against Palestinians. But the BBC is not the only organisation under sharp scrutiny. After a Reuters reporter quoted sources as saying a Palestinian ?had his head smashed in by Israeli soldiers’, no less than an Israeli colonel walked into the newsroom in Jerusalem to make his displeasure at such reporting known. The editor in charge subsequently assured the colonel that the story had gone out without his approval and that the story would be ?corrected?. The story appeared again on the wires, but this time it was ?cleansed? and did not contain any mention of a crushed head, only that the man died.

Very obvious coercion of the international press is not new

In the meantime the Israeli left-of-centre newspaper Haaretz continues to poke fun at the ?officials at the prime minister’s office? who continually come up with new phrases for assassinations — the latest of which was the ?policy of pinpoint prevention?. Meanwhile, the term ?assassination? is used daily by most mainstream Israeli newspapers to describe the killings of leading Palestinian activists and fighters.

This very obvious coercion of the international press is not in fact new; it is only more obvious than it was during the reign of Ehud Barak. The former prime minister had completely mislead the entire world about what happened behind closed doors at Camp David in the summer of 2000, by leaking his spin on the story and thus creating ?facts?. The real story is just beginning to emerge now that American sources are finally telling, albeit timidly, their version of events.

Some in the PA leadership have packed their bags and are ready to go.

The Israelis are pro-active rather than re-active

In Gaza as in Ramallah a number of high-ranking security officials and politicians have already sent their wives and children as well as their money abroad sensing that their ?return? was actually just a temporary sojourn and that a permanent but safe exile is their fate. Mostly security officials and some high-ranking officials are among these. Analysts, like Ziad Abu Amr, an MP from Gaza say that ?chaos’ will follow Arafat’s eventual death and that some are already half way out the door expecting the worst.

What appears likely to happen, when it happens, is a war of militias until one wins or until outside interests (probably Israeli and American) will choose their candidate. This is the worst-case scenario, which many appear to believe is the most likely. Others believe Palestinian forces will come to an understanding and develop a united leadership.

Whatever is happening on the Palestinian side seems irrelevant in the Israeli arena however. The Israelis appear to be moving on their own and are pro-active rather than re-active. Sharon seems determined to recapture the ?glory? of the biblical past, when for a short time (40-80 years) Hebrews ruled all of historic Palestine. As if caught in a time warp the Israeli leader is a militant general cum messianic fanatic all in one.

Sharon and his aides may be right in believing they have persuaded western leaders that Arafat is not doing enough to end terrorism. In a G-8 meeting chaired by US Secretary of State Colin Powell on implementing a monitoring mechanism in the West Bank and Gaza, no conclusions were made. It is as if the US and Europe are standing by to see what happens. American officials have hinted that they would be reluctant to send observing forces until real bloodletting has taken place. Although after recent events it is difficult to know just how much bloodletting it will take to convince them to act.

So while the Americans and Europeans continue to weigh the scales of intervention Sharon continues to create realities from his fantasies. To what extent this is happening with the prime minister was underlined during a recent altercation with his foreign ministry Director General Avi Gil. While discussing the Israeli PR strategy Gil proposed emphasising the fact that Israel’s ?hand is extended in peace.? Sharon reportedly became agitated and angry. ?We need to explain our right to the land,? Sharon raged. ?There are astonishing archaeological findings from the synagogue in Katzrin, and that’s what we should present to the world... people need to know why we, as the Jewish people, have a right to be here. My tourism guidebook is the Bible,? he asserted.

At the biggest Israeli pro-peace rally since the Intifada began, only some 2000 people showed up

What is scariest is not merely the way Prime Minister Sharon is thinking but the fact that most Israelis are thinking like him. At the biggest Israeli pro-peace rally since the Intifada began, only some 2000 people showed up. They called the occupation, an act of violence and demanded that Israeli troops withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza.

It is with people like these that both the old guard Palestinian leadership, like Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas and the new guard like Marwan Barghouti want to talk. But with only 2000 out of a population of five million, there is not likely to be much talking.

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