Sharon cannot crush the Palestinians

The Statesman, Asia News Network, Calcutta

Time to take a look at another mess, in West Asia, similar to our own in some respects, very different in others. Similarity: Endless cycle of violence and retaliation, each justifying the other and growing in intensity and desperation.

The Israelis were not satisfied with the arrest of some people connected to the killing of a cabinet minister, Rehavan Zeevi in August last year and decided not to lift the siege around Yasser Arafat. After a precarious ceasefire, there has been a quantum leap in the violence that has claimed 1200 lives in the last seventeen months.

The Palestinians and Israelis are practically at war. Worse, the targets are, more and more openly, civilians, justified on either side by their own civilian casualties. While the Palestinians have bombed shopping malls, restaurants and Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Israeli F-16s, Apache helicopters and tanks have gone right inside refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza strip to destroy what they believe are terrorist bases and installations used by the Palestinian Authority, its security forces and Fatah. Sharon wants to crush Palestinian militancy. Only, the targets -- overcrowded refugee camps, residential localities -- are such that collateral damage is inevitable even with laser-guided missiles.

Sharon is mistaken if he thinks this will get him anywhere. Although, the Fatah's own militia, the Al Aqsa Brigades have been involved in several attacks, especially on army checkpoints, the more desperate and indiscriminate attacks are the handiwork of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who want to throw Israel into the sea. The initiative is with them, not with Arafat, whose authority has suffered serious erosion, especially since his confinement in Ramallah.

The problem is that this is okay with hardliners in the Israeli government, among them, Sharon. There was talk of reoccupying the West Bank and expelling Arafat. It is only because of people like Shimon Peres that things don't get worse. The only positive thing to emerge out of the last 17 months of violence is the growing realization, at least among the population, that it's not getting anyone anywhere. Even Sharon has relented on his demand of one week of absolute calm and on confining Arafat to Ramallah.

Although, the United States continues to back Israel to the hilt and blames Arafat for everything; televised images showing helpless Palestinians are creating a different kind of public opinion. Especially in the Muslim world. The United States needs to think again.

The Saudi proposal needs serious examination. Some people close to Arafat now say that Palestinian refugees, four million of them should return to Palestine and that Israel should have an Israeli majority with its own frontiers. Many on the Palestinian side also acknowledge that not signing Camp David II in September 2000, which made substantial concessions on Jerusalem, was a mistake. These are the factors to capitalize on.