Just one day after the international television feast in Aqaba, the bodies of David Shambik, 26, and Moran Menachem, 17, both of Jerusalem, were found near Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital in Jerusalem. They had been beaten and stoned to death by terrorists and then their bodies were ripped to shreds with knives and other sharp instruments. Three days later, four Israelis were killed and four wounded early in the morning when three Palestinian terrorists wearing IDF uniforms opened fire on an IDF outpost near the Erez checkpoint in the Gaza Strip. Just before the attack, some 7,000 Palestinians workers had entered Israel via this checkpoint and a senior IDF officer in the Gaza Strip said that the three gunmen had arrived in the area with them. At a certain point, they left the group, climbed one of the walls in the industrial zone, then opened fire and threw grenades. IDF soldiers killed them. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad issued a joint statement claiming responsibility for the attack and issued a leaflet stating: "This joint operation was committed to confirm our people's united choice of holy war and resistance until the occupation of our land and holy places ends." Israel's security services warned that more than 50 terrorist acts were being planned.
A major player determining this situation is Yasser Arafat, who controls a greater part of the Palestinian security services than Abu Mazen's security chief Dahlen, besides exercising considerable influence on the Tanzim and the Al-Aqsa Brigades, which now cooperate with Hamas. He has no interest in Abu Mazen's success and is far more popular in the "street". So for the time being, Abu Mazen cannot even think about trying to disarm his extremists. He has no means of doing so and public opinion is against him. He is regarded as a tool of the United States, which is no recommendation in the Arab world and even less so in the Palestinian Authority areas, where by far the most popular leader is Osama bin Laden. Abu Mazen has already said that he will continue talks with Hamas and if no agreement can be reached with them there will be no peace with Israel. He is not ready for civil war.
Sharon has suffered too. His disastrous speech about ending "the occupation" may have been intended to prepare the country for the Aqaba summit, but its immediate consequence was a major swing of opinion against his Likud Party. "Occupation" has always been the buzzword of the increasingly non-Zionist Left-wing parties and when an Israeli leader wins a national election on his record of confronting these parties, as Sharon did, a public disavowal of his former principles is doubly harmful to his party's image. This was amply demonstrated at the municipal elections in Jerusalem and Haifa. In Jerusalem, a Likud stronghold for the last 30 years, the mayoralty went to United Torah Judaism, which also got nine seats on the 31-member municipal council, while the Likud list was reduced to two seats only and received substantially fewer votes than Shas, the NRP or Meretz. The Labor Party failed to get a seat. In Haifa, where in the last Knesset election the Likud got more votes than Labor for the first time in the country's history, a strong Likud candidate for Mayor lost out to a joint candidate of Shinui and Labor. At the Likud Party convention, half the delegates loudly booed Sharon while the other half cheered him, but it seemed unlikely that a majority could be found for the "road map" or a Palestinian state and Sharon took care not to have the subject brought to a vote.
The key to Sharon's policy is his belief that, providing Israel plays within the limits President Bush has set, the United States will not allow the "road map" to be used as a means of confining Israel to its pre-1967 borders or extracting concessions to the Arabs endangering its security. At Aqaba, Bush committed himself to "a vibrant Jewish state" no less than to a Palestinian state, and this would seem to imply that he would oppose any kind of Arab "right of return" into Jewish - ruled territory. However, more important is the change in US policy towards Israel's settlements reflected by the President's speech at the American Enterprise Institute on 26 February, when he dropped the reference to the recommendations of the Mitchell Committee he had used when dealing with this subject in 2002, saying only: "As progress is made towards peace, settlement activity in the occupied territories must end." The Mitchell Plan required the dismantling and phased evacuation of all Jewish settlements in Judea-Samaria and the Gaza strip. The new wording seems to imply that existing settlements can remain if settlement activities are ended.
The Israeli attempt to eliminate Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the effective leader and mastermind of Hamas in Palestine, did not worsen the situation in any way, though it did not improve it, as Rantisi escaped with injuries. The attempt followed not only the terrorist acts previously mentioned, but also the failure of Abu Mazen, despite Egyptian "help", to reach an agreement with Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Rantisi announced that Hamas would continue its (terrorist) activities until all Jews were expelled from Palestine after the failure of the talks with Abu Mazen, but before the attempt on his life. At the same time, the Fatah Al-Aqsa brigades, the Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine reasserted similar positions. The Islamic Jihad openly stated that it did so "because we reject the conclusions of the Aqaba Summit, where resistance was equated with terrorism."
Abu Mazen's claims that the attack on Rantisi will prevent successful negotiations with these terrorist bodies are thus groundless, if not hypocritical. He could not even achieve their agreement to a temporary truce, which might well have served their interests. His declared intention not to fight them will be a deathblow to the peace process, unless Israel fights them instead.
Abu Mazen, may be merely trying to bridge a period when he is genuinely incapable of fighting his terrorists. The US has promised training and other assistance for his security force, which at the time of writing does not exist. If all goes well, it may be ready for action sometime in August. And then the world will gradually learn against whom he intends to use it. Because if Arafat is still there, he will want a say about this, and Arafat has done nothing to check the terrorism of the Tanzim and the Al-Aqsa Brigades.
Sharon is carrying out his promise to President Bush to remove unauthorized settlement outposts, though it is difficult to justify to Sharon's political supporters while terror continues. Nevertheless, the fate of the peace process will depend on the elimination of Palestinian terrorism. Any Israeli government ready to pursue such a process while the terror continues, despite the clear lessons of the past, would probably fall. However, preventing or scotching Western and other foreign pressures for such policies is essential to ensure Israel's survival as "a vibrant Jewish state." The availability of the courage to do so will determine the country's future prospects.
As of now, it seems that the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel will also depend on the curbing of Palestinian terrorism. Yet it is at the very least conceivable that the European Community, Russia and the Moslem states will demand the creation of such a state regardless of whether it permits terrorism or not. In the last resort, this depends on the capability of the Bush administration to stand by the policies it has repeatedly reaffirmed. If it does, there will be a new and very different Middle East. If it does not, the old order will prevail.
