The latest explosion of Palestinian rage against Israelis has been dramatic both in scale and scope. This month alone has been witness to a deadly raid on a kibbutz family, the shooting down of 12 settlers in Hebron, a bus bombing in Jerusalem which killed almost a dozen people and the wounding of three Israeli sailors when a suspected Palestinian fishing boat blew up near a naval patrol boat off the coast of Gaza in a rare seaborne assault.
Logic suggests that the surge of attacks, just the latest after over two years of the intifada, would prompt Israelis to start negotiating with the Palestinians once again and would help elect the new leader of the Labor Party, Amram Mitzna, in preparation for this new chapter. Mitzna is pursuing a platform of disengagement from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying that if he became prime minister he would unilaterally pull troops and Jewish settlers out of the Gaza Strip and resume negotiations on a far-reaching peace settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
He has said he would revive the offers made by the Labor’s last premier, Ehud Barak, which included Palestinian statehood on some 95 percent of the West Bank and Gaza and Palestinian control over the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
And if a peace treaty proves impossible, Mitzna said, he would withdraw from parts of the West Bank unilaterally.
One more election day promise: Mitzna said he would negotiate with whomever the Palestinians chose — a departure from the position of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and many Labor leaders who have concluded that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat must be sidelined. Mitzna says it is not up to Israel to choose its negotiating partner. Obviously, Mitzna has concluded the Israeli occupation must end and because of that stand, Arafat welcomed his election last week, saying he hoped Mitzna would “follow in the footsteps of (former Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin and finish off his work”.
But surveys among the Israeli public give Mitzna little chance of becoming prime minister. Polls indicate that Sharon is likely to win both the challenge posed by Mitzna for the premiership on Jan. 28 and his own party’s primary against rival Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. Sharon’s campaign promise of more than two years ago for peace and security has yet to be fulfilled but Israelis have tended to fault the Palestinians and Arafat rather than their own leader. The result is that Israelis have moved to the right and are likely to provide Sharon with another mandate. Also, many Israelis say that Sharon’s use of military might and his refusal to negotiate are effective — or at least constitute the lesser evil under the circumstances.
Mitzna’s message of peace is, then, a hard-sell at present. All the opinion polls show that the majority of Israeli voters prefer the hard-line approach of the ruling Likud. With the weekend incursion in Bethlehem, Israel has retaken control of all Palestinian population centers in the West Bank except Jericho — mirroring the massive deployment that capped military offensives in April and June. Friday’s incursion leaves the Israelis in control of seven of the eight major West Bank towns. Israel’s blind revenge as it conducts its colossal raids has brought death to Palestinians and even a foreigner. A British UN aid worker was killed Friday during clashes between soldiers and Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp. The shooting is shocking enough but the fact that the man, Iain Hook, was shot because a trigger-happy Israeli soldier mistook a mobile phone in his hand for a grenade is simply unacceptable. And reports say that soldiers refused immediate access for an ambulance for Hook, 50.
If this is Israel’s attitude to a wounded Western UN worker, one can imagine the plight of Palestinians under the Zionist yoke — a plight which drives many youngsters to desperate acts.
