The warring goes on

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

nyone who thought that peace was already breaking out, that the Palestinian leadership had succeeded in forging a hudna deal with the armed groups in Gaza, and Israel had ceased its operations seeking terror suspects in the territories only had to turn on the rado this morning to awaken to a grimmer truth. The war goes on. In Gaza, an Israeli soldier was killed and four others wounded in a gun battle with Hamas gunmen. Meanwhile, not far from there, an Islamic Jihad militant was killed by an air force helicopter missile strike. And much of the press was taken up this morning with another case of what appears to be an Israeli commando unit violating army rules and regulations – and High Court of Justice rulings – in its handling of a wounded wanted man and some civilians the soldiers used as human shields. The unit in question, from the vaunted elite naval commandos known as the Shayetet, has been suspended from all activity in the territories and in a rare case of the army apparently realizing that there have been coverups in the past, a brigadier general outside the chain of command for operations in the territories has been named to head a probe into exactly what happened in the village outside Jenin last Friday. According to B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, the wanted man was alive, wounded and unarmed, when fatal shots fired. Furthermore, local Palestinian civilians were ordered to disarm the wounded man and then bring the body to the soldiers. The locals told B’Tselem – and Channel 10 -- that the man was alive when they left him with the soldiers. And as in the case of the Gaza girl who was killed by a company commander a few weeks ago, the incident became known because some soldiers in the unit reported what really happened to B’Tselem.

In any case, the negotiations continue inside the Palestinian political arena over a way to disarm the gunmen without clashing with them, and there is so far no order to the security services to forcibly prevent armed men from parading with their weapons through the streets of Gaza or the Palestinian towns of the West Bank. But there is talk about how things will change after the elections, presumably because the new leadership in the post-Arafat era will have then been granted the kind of legitimacy that makes it possible for them to demand an end to the rogue operations by independent cells operating under the influence of foreign interests, like Hezbollah or Hamas in Damascus.

Indeed, the while the warring is underway in Gaza, the diplomatic front is also not at rest. PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, accompanied by Palestinian Authority Ahmed Qurei’ and PA Foreign Minister Nabil Sha’ath made an historic trip to Damascus yesterday, promising to ‘coordinate’ with the Syrians. More likely, say some observers, is that Syria, desperate to get out from under American pressure, will try to coordinate with the Palestinians, especially after the upcoming January 9th elections. Abbas and Qurei’ were meeting today with the Damascus-based leadership of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front, presumably asking them to stop encouraging the ’armed intifada,’ such as the incident this morning in Gaza.

ublic opinion polls published yesterday in the territories meanwhile indicate that it’s a neck and neck race between Abbas and jailed Marwan Barghouti (at least in the West Bank, while in Gaza Abbas roundly beats Bareghouti), Fateh chairman Farouk Kaddoumi warned Barghouti that if he does not drop his candidacy, Fateh will toss him out.

On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Sharon, riding a wave of international popularity because of his apparent determination to go through with the disengagement from Gaza plan – and his eagerness to bring Shimon Peres and the Labor Party into his government – may be easing his opposition to a proposed Middle East conference that Tony Blair wants to convene in Britain after the January 9th PA elections. Sharon’s initial opposition to the planned conference was based on his concern that it would be an attempt to skip the first stages of the roadmap and go directly to a final status agreement negotiation, something that he meanwhile is loathe to do. But Britain has been sending the message that the conference is meant to shore up international support for the elected leadership in the PA and not to pressure Israel.

In any case, Sharon first has to win formal support from the Likud central committee for his plan to bring Labor into the coalition, and the conventional wisdom now is that he will win that approval in a balloting to take place on Thursday. If so, the next stage will be whether Labor’s central committee will agree to the invitation – but before it votes on that, it will vote on when to hold its leadership elections. Peres wants that vote held late next year, on the assumption that Labor is joining the coalition. His opponents and potential rivals, including former premier Ehud Barak, insist on a spring 2005 vote, which would essentially preclude Labor joining a Sharon government, which would probably mean new elections.

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