Bus stop killings a challenge to Sharon

By Christian Chaise

JERUSALEM (AFP): Events like Wednesday's killing of eight Israelis by a Palestinian bus driver near Tel Aviv could provoke a harsh response from right-winger Ariel Sharon once he assumes power as Israel's next prime minister, an analyst said.

The gruesome deaths, presented by the Palestinians as the act of a lone individual, heighten the risk of escalating the vicious four-and-a-half month wave of violence in the region that has already left more than 400 dead.

The bloodshed also lowers the already slight chances for restarting peace negotiations, hopes for which had been rendered doubtful by last week's landslide election of arch-hawk Sharon.

The violence also crushed any hope that Israel will lift its crushing blockade on the Palestinian territories.

The blockade, which has choked the Palestinian economy and provoked warnings from UN officials that Palestinian Authority institutions are on the verge of collapse, was re-tightened Wednesday.

Sharon, who has taken hard-line stances on most Palestinian issues, had signaled his willingness to soften the blockade on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, having recognized the dangers in store for Israel if Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's control of the territories were to collapse.

Since being elected, Sharon said several times that he did not believe in a collective punishment for the population and that he preferred punishing the "terrorists" directly with unconventional methods.

However, events such as Wednesdays's grisly killings only reinforce public pressure for Israeli leaders to be unrelenting in their treatment of the Palestinians, regardless of the circumstances.

"Every act of violence is a challenge to Sharon and to people like Sharon who have argued for years that the way to deal with terror is with counter-terror," said Mark Heller, an analyst at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv university.

"And now he will be put to the test."

Sharon, who is still trying to assemble a national unity government with caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Barak's Labour party, has not yet taken the reins of power.

But following this morning's carnage, he reaffirmed his campaign promise of restoring security to Israel. More than four months of violence have left Israel reeling and contributed to Barak's defeat.

"The most important things is to deploy all the necessary means to restore security," Sharon told reporters, adding that this would be his government's "number one priority."

In the aftermath of Sharon's stunning 25-percentage point victory, there has been an upsurge in violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories, interpreted by some as a move by the Palestinians to test Sharon.

A car bomb exploded in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in west Jerusalem only two days after Sharon's election. Although no one was killed or even seriously hurt, the attack ushered in a new cycle of daily clashes and roadside ambushes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel has also commenced an aggressive new campaign, jettisoning the quiet preceding the election.

Tuesday, the Israeli army killed an officer in Yasser Arafat's personal security force in a missile strike on the man's car in the Gaza Strip.

The attack renewed Israel's tactic of eliminating Palestinians suspected of leading military activities against Israel. The strategy had been frozen last month after an outpouring of international criticism.

However, the immediate effect from Wednesday's killings was the shutting of the border for 16,000 Palestinian workers who had been allowed to return to work in Israel since last month.

More than 100,000 workers have been prevented from going to work in Israel since the start of the uprising.

The bus attack by 35-year-old Ala Khalid Abu Olba, who was arrested after being seriously wounded during a high-speed chase by police when he fled the scene, scared Israel.

According to relatives, he was not affiliated with any extremist group, and he had been cleared to work in Israel by the country's security forces. He fit Israel's definition for being harmless: older than 35, married and with a family.

There is now the risk that Israeli public opinion will demand nothing less than a complete separation from the Palestinians, never mind the consequences.

"I don't think in the long run it's in our favor to keep the Gaza Strip tightly closed with people starving inside," said Israeli Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh.

But he added Israel's security "is the first consideration."