In the end, [one senior diplomatic official] said, the Islamic extremist groups feared that there might be a breakthrough "and have done everything they could to stop it." He said that this follows a pattern of increased terrorism whenever it seems there is a chance for progress.
Well, that's the sort of thing that happens when you give small radical groups veto power over any given process, now isn't it?
This, of course, is entirely what Sharon intended by stating that there would be no peace process until they had a week without terrorist activity. Any leader with an active brain cell in their head had to know that this was laying down the gauntlet -- just look at Northern Ireland. Sharon also had to know that it was about the most effective way he had to destabilize Arafat's government, such as it is; with no effective government or government-substitute in place, Israel can act with relative impunity, saying, "But there's nobody there who can do anything." And of course, there isn't; but then, few of Israel's stated expectations are remotely realistic, anyway, given the situation. It's also a win-win situation in Sharon's view (except for those few hundred Israelies and Palestinians who just happen to get killed along the way, of course). It effectively silences the segment of Israel in favor of some sort of negotiated peace. It strengthens the militant parts of his government. Sharon is certainly not interested in cornering Arafat into risking civil war -- he's not in the least interested in concessions, or they wouldn't be in quite this situation, now would they? To be sure, having the Palestinian areas going through outright civil war would be a bonus, of sorts; if they're running around slaughtering each other, then at least a few of them will be too distracted to run around slaughtering Israelis, and a few others will be too dead to do so. (Mind, civil wars tend to be messy and to spill over to technically uninvolved areas.)
I do wonder why Israeli officials think that radical Palestinians would care in the least about being blamed by the US for killing the peace process. Do they think we'd run over and bomb them, too? When have we ever carried out that sort of operation in Israeli territory? The Israelis are quite capable of bombing all on their own, as they've amply demonstrated. (And in doing so, destroying some of the helicopters Arafat's government has capable of carrying out the sort of police work they're demanding. Yes. Right. OK.)
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!