Israel/Palestine

Crisis Transforms Israel-Palestine Conflict, But What Now?

The attacks on Washington and New York have obviously transformed most international and domestic relationships in the Middle East as the US prepares for a military campaign of uncertain scope and duration. But no relationship has been subject to so much change and so many stresses as the region's hottest continuing conflict, the Al-Aqsa intifada, now approaching its first anniversary.

In the first days after the air attacks, Israel appeared to be taking advantage of US preoccupations to pursue a new offensive. Israeli attacks were stepped up, troops were moved into Palestinian towns briefly, and a zone of separation proclaimed in the area around Jenin, a zone which might be the beginning phase of the proposed buffer zone the Israel Defense Forces have been discussing. Ariel Sharon publicly linked Yasir ‘Arafat with international terrorism, Israeli commentators sought to portray their own position as comparable to that of the United States, and Sharon explicitly forbade the long-discussed meeting between ‘Arafat and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

That was phase one. But the Palestinian Authority, clearly recognizing that its relationship with the US and its hopes for US pressure for a resumption of peace talks would be doomed if Israel succeeded in portraying it as a supporter of suicide bombings, sought to do damage control. Some of the gestures were a bit naive, such as ‘Arafat's televised donation of blood, and others were heavy-handed, such as seizing videotape of a pro-Bin Ladin demonstration in Gaza, but the goal was to distance itself from any links to radical Islamist groups and to prevent the Authority itself being identified by the US as being on the wrong side of the fence.

That was phase two. By a week after the attacks, matters shifted towards a more optimistic scenario. The PA declared a ceasefire, and Israel also declared that it would cease firing and pull back troops. The ceasefire seemed to take hold more effectively than its predecessors, and the ‘Arafat-Peres meeting was once again put back on track. The drive-by killing of an Israeli in the West Bank derailed it (or at least postponed it) once again, but tensions seemed to have been reduced by a significant margin.

While the US certainly was dismayed by reports of individual Palestinians celebrating the attacks, the radicalization of the Palestinian street has been no secret. The US also, however, seems to have been visibly annoyed by Israel's refusal to proceed with discussions about maintaining the ceasefire and Sharon's open defiance of some US requests; in the end, Israel too had to move towards a ceasefire.

‘Arafat, however, faces the greater challenge at the next phase. He has denounced suicide bombings but has also to some extent been willing to benefit from the pressures they have created on Israel, and he has forged a tacit alliance over the year of the intifada with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. That alliance has now dissolved, since their support for suicide bombing and denunciations of the US make it impossible to embrace them and still maintain a relationship with the United States, and ‘Arafat clearly recognizes that alienating the United States at this moment would leave the Palestinian Authority completely at Israel's mercy.

It is far from clear what will happen next. US military actions in Afghanistan or elsewhere may well inflame anti-Americanism in the Palestinian street and put the Palestinian Authority itself in an even more awkward position. Israel will, so long as Ariel Sharon is in power, almost certainly continue to look for opportunities to pressure the Palestinians under cover of the international war on terrorism, and to equate ‘Arafat and the PA with Bin Ladin and his ilk. The Arab world will continue to make a clear distinction between resistance to occupation, in the Palestinian case, and attacks on the United States, in the case of Bin Ladin.

And, barring some real breakthrough, the intifada is likely to continue, perhaps subdued, but not ended.

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