Violence pushes Mideast toward war

By Christian Chaise

JERUSALEM (AFP): A Palestinian suicide attack at an Israeli shopping center and Israel's response with warplanes -- a first against the occupied Palestinian territories -- reduce to zero any hope of ending eight months of fighting and have increased the risk of all-out war.

A resumption in negotiations -- the goal of the two initiatives on which the international community's tiny hopes lie, an Egyptian-Jordanian plan and the Mitchell report on the violence -- seemed as far away as ever Friday, with the region instead preparing for a new round of reprisals and counter- reprisals.

Late in the afternoon, nine Palestinians in the West Bank paid with their lives as Israeli bombers responded to the suicide bombing in the coastal town of Netanya, where a 20-year-old Palestinian carpenter blew up himself and five others.

The suicide bombing, claimed by the Islamist movement Hamas, was itself declared an act of revenge for the killings early last Monday of five Palestinian police officers in an operation Israel has admitted was an error.

The tit-for-tat killings illustrate the circularity of the conflict, in which each side launches an offensive against the other that only guarantees a continuation of the bloodshed, which has left 553 people dead since September.

But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon nonetheless upped the ante of the conflict by using warplanes -- U.S.-built F-16 fighters, according to the Palestinians -- a first since Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip, respectively from Jordan and Egypt, in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israeli minister without portfolio Danny Naveh told Israeli television it was "surely not the last time that we'll use warplanes," saying that "our anger is great."

So just as raids by combat helicopters and incursions into the Palestinian territories have now become commonplace, bombings by warplanes, unthinkable just a few days ago, could now also become routine.

By taking the conflict to a new dimension, Sharon has in any case confirmed that his goal is not simply to strike a blow at Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, but to gradually tighten Israel's grip around it.

As even though the Netanya bombing was claimed by Hamas, Israel has made clear it believes the Palestinian Authority and its leader bear responsibility.

Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin said that even though the Netanya bombing was claimed by Hamas, it is "the fruit of a new wave of incitation to hatred" expressed by Arafat and official Palestinian media.

He cited Arafat's speech Tuesday marking the anniversary of Israel's creation, a date Palestinians mark as Nakba, or "catastrophe," and "the Palestinian authority's official media, which call day after day for the killing of Jews."

Indeed, all the sites targeted by Israel in its strikes Friday were linked to the Palestinian Authority, such as the base of Arafat's elite protection unit Force 17 and the Palestinians' tiny naval force in the northern Gaza Strip. And, in a clear signal, it bombed a Palestinian security site in Gaza City just meters (yards) away from Arafat's office.

"The Palestinians are going to pay a very dear price," Naveh vowed.

Sharon seems convinced that in time, Arafat will have no choice but to renounce the nearly eight-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israel and resume talks on the terms defined by Israel.

But to judge from the past, the Israeli escalation could also have the exact opposite results.