The Situation

Americans killed in Gaza

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

The Loving Dream, acrylics on paper, 50x65, by Silvia Rosenberg

Within hours of the U.S. veto of a UN Security Council resolution against the Israeli ' separation-security fence-wall-obstacle' going up in the West Bank, Jibril Rajoub, the West Bank strongman who was once the darling of the Americans and now heads Yasser Arafat's National Security Council, condemned Washington for no longer acting as an honest broker in the Middle East conflict. The U.S. veto came after the Arab bloc turned down a draft that tried to balance the condemnation of the fence (which the U.S. also opposes) with a condemnation of the suicide bombings inside Israel.

And within a couple of hours of Rajoub's statements to Israel Radio, a Gaza landmine aimed at a convoy of U.S. officials killed at least three near Beit Hanoun, just south of the Erez Junction. The officials were part of the U.S. delegation responsible for monitoring the implementation of the roadmap – though the roadmap has been frozen for weeks. All three dead were said to be security officers contracted for the U.S. legation. All the wounded are being treated inside Israel. According to some reports from Israel, the officials were in Gaza to hand out scholarships to some Gaza youth. Other reports said the convoy was CIA.

The attack was immediately condemned by Israelis and Palestinians -- but with a difference. For the Israelis, like President Moshe Katsav, quoted by Israel Radio, the attack was proof that violence in the territories is part of the global war of terror, and later, Yom Tov Samiya, a former commander of Israeli forces in Gaza said that ' maybe now, the Americans will expel Arafat.'

For the Palestinians, like Saeb Erekat, the attack was a blow against Palestinian interests. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei' called for an investigation to find those responsible and Arafat sent condolences to the families of the victims. The attack, the first successful one against American officials on the ground in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, will certainly not improve Palestinian standing in the eyes of the U.S. administration, with comparisons almost immediately being drawn to the attacks on the U.S. presence in Iraq.

And it plays into the hands of Israeli hawks, who insist that there can be no political negotiations with the Palestinians as long as Palestinian violence continues. ' There's a certain degree of support for attacks on foreigners in the Arab world, and we are considered foreigners and so are the Americans' said MK Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and a protégé of Binyamin Netanyahu. Speaking to Israel Radio, the former philosophy lecturer at Haifa University said ' This is an extremist ideology that says that non-Arab Muslims have no place in the Middle East.'

Meanwhile, the Geneva Accords, the detailed 50-page draft peace agreement hammered out by a team of Israeli peace camp leaders and Palestinian politicians, continues making waves. A Yedioth Ahronoth poll said that 59 percent of the public opposed the agreement – but 39 percent support it – before it has actually been presented to the public. Spokesmen in favor of the agreement, including author Amos Oz, one of the signatories, said they were pleasantly surprised by the support for the proposed deal, considering that the public relations campaign on behalf of the agreement on both sides had not even formally begun, and so far, everything known about the agreement is based on leaks and speculation, rather than a reading of the text. Nonetheless, the Right was enjoying the cold water thrown on the Geneva plan by U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who called the draft ' a private effort' in which the administration was not at all involved, and reiterated that the U.S. regards the roadmap as the proper peace plan.

The official government objections to the draft accord will reach the ears of the Swiss government, which is said to have at least partially financed some of the effort to reach the agreement, when the Israeli ambassador goes to the Swiss foreign ministry – at Bern's request, to discuss the agreement. The ambassador is expected to tell Bern that the agreement undermines the roadmap, and that the Swiss involvement in promoting the agreement is regarded as inappropriate intervention in the peace process.

In other developments, IDF troops arrested four International Solidarity Movement activists – one American and three Britons – in the West Bank; George Massar, 69, a Haifa Christian, became the 21st victim of the Haifa massacre at the Maxim restaurant when he died this morning in hospital; Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz asked the army to come up with a plan that would prevent ' Israeli Arabs suspected of terror' from visiting the territories; and the Knesset subcommittee on army affairs has asked the defense minister and chief of staff's offices to clarify newspaper reports that the army was against a Mofaz order for an emergency callup of reserves. Israel Radio was reporting that there are many among the called up reservists who object to the order because it seems to be politically motivated rather than the result of a genuine emergency. Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim told Army Radio and Israel Radio that the holiday season, combined with the Maxim restaurant massacre, justified the emergency callup.

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