TULKARM, West Bank, 31 January 2003 — Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians in a major West Bank raid yesterday after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rebuffed a post-election olive branch extended by Yasser Arafat.
Launching the first major incursion in the West Bank since Sharon’s tough security stance earned his Likud party a resounding win in Tuesday’s election, an Israeli armored force swept into the Palestinian-controlled sector of Hebron.
Soldiers entered private homes, stormed Palestinian Authority offices and blocked major roads in the city, where violence has frequently raged in a 28-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.
Around 600 hard-line Jewish settlers live under massive Israeli army protection in Hebron, surrounded by about 120,000 Palestinians.
In Tulkarm, soldiers shot dead two Palestinians who the army said belonged to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group of the Fatah. Palestinian officials said only one of the men was a Brigades member.
The army said the troops had tried to take the two into custody but opened fire when they tried to flee.
The Hebron operation came hours after Arafat, the Palestinian president, said he was willing to hold immediate talks with the Israeli leader and call a cease-fire.
Sharon’s spokesman dismissed the offer as “duplicity and deception”.
Responding to the snub, Arafat told reporters: “We are committed to the peace of the brave...This is the Holy Land, and peace has to be a priority.”
Sharon swept to victory on his uncompromising refusal to open talks with the Palestinians until they surrender their weapons and drop Arafat as their leader. The steel-edged position inflicted a historic defeat on the center-left Labour, which promised to renew peace talks.
Despite his resounding win, snatching 37 out of 120 parliamentary seats, Sharon has to build a stable coalition to steer the country out of the bloody conflict and the worst economic crisis in its 54-year history. His goal is to lure Labour into a national unity government, together with the secular center-right Shinui party which made massive gains in Tuesday’s vote with a campaign against the privileges enjoyed by the country’s ultra-Orthodox Jews.
But Labour’s dovish leader Amram Mitzna has refused to join any coalition headed by his hard-line rival, refusing to repeat the party’s 22-month cohabitation which ended in last October’s Labour walkout and precipitated the early elections. If Sharon fails to woo Labour, he will have to base his government on Shiunui and tougher right-wing factions, as Shinui has refused to join any long-term government with the extremely religious Shas party, a traditional kingmaker in Israeli coalition-building.
Sharon fears a far-right government could limit his room for maneuver if the United States exerts pressure on Israel to tackle the crisis after an expected confrontation with Iraq, in particular forcing Israel to dismantle some settlements in the occupied territories.
A far-right coalition with a small majority of fractious minor parties would make for a bumpy ride for the 74-year-old former general, and could plunge the country into new elections, analysts predict.
Press reports yesterday said Sharon planned to “corner” Labour by raising the specter of a new vote shortly after elections which opinion polls showed were not welcomed by the majority of Israelis, who want to see a united front in the drawn-out crisis.
He also intends to use the looming threat of war with Iraq, and the risk of Scud missiles hitting Israel as they did in the 1991 Gulf War, to turn up the heat on Labour.
Analysts say Labour, shocked by the collapse of the peace process and deeply divided by its former cohabitation with Sharon, could split over whether to join the government. (Agencies)
