What will Israeli premier Sharon do?

The following is the first of two articles by Azzam Tamimi, a researcher at the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London.

LONDON (JP): More than seven years of peace making between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) seem to have only proven that peace in Palestine is out of reach. Nothing shows this to be true more than the eruption of the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) on Sept. 29, 2000.

It was the first intifada, which erupted on Dec. 8, 1987, that left the Israelis with no option but to recognize the PLO as a sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and as a partner in the project of accomplishing a direly needed security and peace of mind.

Former "terrorists" turned into "partners" in a process that was supposed to pave the way for Israel's acceptance in the Arab and Muslim circles and for an end to all hostilities.

Just before the eruption of the current intifada, Israel seemed very close to achieving its long-cherished objective. Diplomatic and commercial missions had already been established in a number of Arab and Islamic capitals and an elite of Arabs and Muslims had already been won by the "peace makers".

Voices in as far as Jakarta and Karachi and as close as Cairo and Amman, not to forget the Gulf and Arabia, could be heard saying: "Why should we be more Palestinian than the Palestinians?"

In other words, if the Palestinians (though strictly speaking only a small minority of them represented by the PLO) have recognised Israel's right to exist and are busy doing business with it, why should the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Qataris, the Omanis, the Moroccans, the Mauritanians, the Indonesians and the Pakistanis be denied the opportunity to benefit from the dividends of peace?

Normalization projects between Arabs and Israelis had been proceeding at full speed when Sharon, the current Israeli Prime Minister-elect, decided to defy Muslims and desecrate their shrine. On Sept. 28, and in the company of hundreds of Israeli troops, he stormed into the Al-Aqsa mosque, which Israelis claim to be sitting on the site of a Jewish temple that was destroyed by the Romans around the year 70 AD.

Across the world, blame was showered on Sharon for having enraged Muslims by his "unwise" and "miscalculated" adventure that led to the eruption of the intifadah the following day. Ehud Barak shared in the blame for having authorized the visit.

In retrospect, if Barak did actually authorize the visit, then that was the decision that amounted to digging his own grave with his own hands. But it really no longer matters who and how such a visit came to be arranged.

What truly matters is the fact that Sharon's move was only a catalyst; it was no more than the spark that ignited a barrel of dynamite that was the product of over seven years of Palestinian frustration and suffering, and also of so many unfulfilled, and perhaps unrealizable, promises.

It is an undeniable fact that the Israelis have paid some price for peace. In political terms, they have made "concessions". They recognized the PLO and turned it into some kind of an autonomous civilian administrative authority.

They even took steps to re-deploy their occupation forces in order to grant the Palestinian Authority additional powers and some credibility.

But for an average Palestinian none of these measures meant much. Palestinians now have an authority, but is life any better? The Palestinian Authority has proven to be corrupt, despotic and dependent on Israel.

In fact, the existence of the authority has not prevented the continued loss of Palestinian land. The Israelis have confiscated so much more land since the Oslo peace treaty was signed in September 1993. In the name of peace, land was seized to allow for the expansion of existing Jewish settlements.

This was deemed essential for security purposes or for the construction of highways for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers whose safety, it is alleged, necessitates avoiding Arab towns or villages.

Thousands of Palestinians continue to be rotting in Israeli jails. Palestinian refugees, at least a million of whom live in refugee camps inside the West Bank and Gaza, are told they should not hope to go back to their homes.

On top all of this, the Palestinian population is much more restricted in terms of employment and movement than ever before due to the numerous partitions and divisions created by the peace process itself. Consequently, the percentage of Palestinians below the poverty line increased as unemployment soared.

The Palestinians might have been able to endure longer despite all these bitter fruits of peace. However, the insult dealt to them by Sharon was too much. "They have been killing us, starving our children, uprooting our olive trees and confiscating our lands and now they want to turn our mosque into a synagogue."

That is why Sharon's visit to the mosque highlighted another rather important, though occasionally sidelined, element in the conflict. The Al-Aqsa Mosque and its blessed environs mean a great deal to the Muslims worldwide.

It is, therefore, not surprising that as the Palestinians rose up and exploded in anger, their intifada was paralleled by hundreds of intifadas in Arab and Muslim cities around the world.

Israelis and their allies in the West seemed shocked. The reaction to Israeli brutality and Sharon's disrespect for Islam and Muslims was beyond anticipation.

The bridges of peace built between Tel Aviv and many Arab and Muslim capitals were shaken and seemed threatened with imminent collapse under the hammer of popular demands for opening the borders -- "so that we can rush to the aid of our beleaguered brothers and sisters and our Mosque."

Some Arab leaders even called for war, an initiative that heightened tension between Arab rulers and governments who seemed baffled and at a loss at what to do. The myths that Israel could one day become a normal entity and an acceptable nation seemed to evaporate in the heat of the moment. Such a prospect may have even been lost forever.