The cease-fire between Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Israel is supposed to last through the Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for Jan. 25. Israel’s return to its policy of targeted assassinations, airstrikes and arrests and Palestinian responses suggest, however, that the truce, reached in February, may soon be over. The eight funerals in Gaza — 15 dead in all at the weekend — makes a cease-fire collapse a real possibility.
The latest truce violation was all too predictable. A senior leader of Islamic Jihad was killed on Monday; then a suicide bomber killed five Israelis on Wednesday. Nine Palestinians died in Israeli airstrikes on Thursday and Friday. The week ended with Israel pounding the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday with aircraft and artillery.
Israel wants to stop all the firing from Gaza and has threatened to reoccupy Hamas’ missile-launching areas if necessary. It might invade Gaza proper altogether, thus making a farce of its withdrawal from the strip in the summer. Another worry has been the reaction and responses of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as opposed to those of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has condemned the Hadera bombing as counterproductive and has vowed that the Palestinian Authority will increase efforts to ensure the continuation of the truce. Let Abbas’ comments be compared with those of Sharon whose vow of wide-ranging and ceaseless operations against Palestinian activists has become reality. Sharon also will not meet Abbas in a summit, which was postponed from the middle of this month to early November and now has been again postponed.
Sharon’s aides seem to be taking cues from their boss. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom dismissed an American call for Israel to show restraint and to resume talks. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz expressed doubt that Israel could make peace with the present Palestinian leadership or that a Palestinian state would see the light of day in the coming years. That sounded much like President Bush’s recent suggestion that a Palestinian state may not be created before he leaves office in January 2009.
The progress that was supposed to have been made after the Gaza pullout has never materialized — and in fact has been swept aside by renewed violence — because progress depends on the good faith efforts of the PA and the Israeli government and their compliance with each of the obligations outlined in the road map. The formula might seem exceptionally simple if both parties genuinely wished to achieve a comprehensive and just peace.
The reality, however, is that Israel has no such ambitions. Israel used the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip to make the world think it was taking the peace initiative although it is in fact a trade off — the Gaza Strip for most of the West Bank, for the relinquishing of the right of return, for prisoners, for Jerusalem, borders and perhaps a state itself. Israel’s abuse of its power will allow it to continue to hamper Palestinian aspirations and provoke extreme responses and reactions.
