No sooner had General Anthony Zinni, special US envoy to the Middle East, arrived in the area to help jump-start the hopelessly stalled Middle East peace talks, the suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Haifa put his mission in jeopardy. As of last count 25 innocent bystanders lay dead and more than one hundred wounded. Since then there have been more but not as deadly. The spiral of violence that erupted in the wake of Aerial Sharon’s ill-advised visit to Al-Aqsa compound in September 2000, continues to exact heavy toll from both Israelis and the Palestinians.
No matter what the reasons for stalled peace talks, no matter how grievous the complaints, no matter how genuine a cause, a wanton carnage of innocent civilians is wrong and has to be condemned in no unequivocal terms. The pain of a Jewish mother or father is no less or different than that of a Palestinian mother or father.
Hamas has taken responsibility for this latest attack on Israeli citizens. Over the years it has, like Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, carried out a relentless campaign of terror against Israel. They all operate out of the West Bank and Gaza, areas that are supposedly under the control of the Palestinian Authority. In reality the Palestinian Authority has to tread a fine line between international expectations to curb militancy on one hand and resentment of a frustrated and angry Palestinian population on the other. The Palestinians are still disenfranchised, still occupied and still beig humiliated. They are still waiting for the peace dividend that the Oslo Accords were supposed to bring.
Yasser Arafat is in a no-win situation. He is being asked to perform an impossible balancing act that is not humanly possible. He can not act as head of a de-facto state when his very authority is being challenged and undermined by the current Israeli government. To label him a terrorist, to denigrate him and re-occupy areas under his control do not leave him much room to maneuver.
Some people are suggesting that Yasser Arafat has outlived his usefulness and thus should be pushed over. If he were eliminated either by Israel or by some fanatic Palestinian, who would step in to fill the vacuum? Will his successor have the savvy and skills to negotiate with Israel? Will he have the experience and the uncanny ability to tip toe through the minefields of Middle Eastern politics? At this stage there is no one who could fit that bill. While it is hard to accept, Yasser Arafat is Israel’s only hope to achieve peace with the Palestinians. No one has the political capital to go as far as Arafat did during the ultimately dead locked Camp David talks three years ago. Yasser Arafat personifies the Palestinian struggle and to eliminate him would push the region into a bloody chaos.
Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad do not accept Israel’s right to exist in the Middle East and therefore are against peace with Israel. They never accepted the Oslo Accords, were against Camp David II and will not settle for anything less than a total victory over their avowed enemy.
That unrealistic and impossible dream feeds a vicious cycle of violence in which Palestinians are the ultimate losers. In addition the senseless suicide bombings are also costing Palestinians the sympathy of those Israelis who had in the past supported Palestinian rights and had courageously stood up to their own government and the militant right wing Jewish settlers. On the other hand Israel does not want peace with the Palestinians. To achieve peace Israel would have to cede Palestinian land and accept a viable Palestinian state next door. I do not believe Aerial Sharon and his hard line Likud party can ever agree to such an arrangement. Cynical as it might seem but selective elimination of Palestinian leaders as Israel has been doing in recent months, is meant to provoke the Palestinians into suicide missions inside Israel. Each act of terrorism against Israel and Israel’s tit-for-tat disproportionate response adds fuel to the already incendiary and explosive situation. Under such heightened war like footing Israel is not obliged to negotiate peace with the Palestinians. Suicide bombings have worked to the detriment of the Palestinians. Not only they are being singled out by the international community; they are also loosing the support of those Israelis who in the past had stood courageously against the policies of their government in support of the Palestinians. Further more an ongoing violence in the region is bound to put more strains on the fragile coalition that President Bush has put together to fight global terrorism.
General Zinni has an impossible task at hand. Let us hope he is successful where others with more knowledge and more diplomatic finesse were not. It will be a miracle if he pulls this one off. May be at this stage we do need a miracle.