Pulling the strings for God

Thursday, December 23, 2004

In Gaza, more than 20 mortars had crashed into south Gaza settlements by noon today, sending the army back into the Khan Yunis refugee camp, where the troops have been going in and out for the past week in a so far unsuccessful effort to halt the mortar fire from Hamas and supposedly rogue Fateh cells.

That mortar fire is obviously aimed as much as Mahmoud Abbas as it is at Israelis. In another two weeks he is expected to be elected president of the Palestinian Authority and much is now being made of the significance of January 10th, the day after those elections.

Yesterday, Sharon specifically spoke of the window of opportunity that he sees opening and Tony Blair agreed with him about a major expectation: that once elected, Abbas will finally have the authority to use force, if necessary, to impose law and order on the territories. Today, in any case, there are elections today in 26 local authorities in the West Bank and Gaza, dress rehearsal for the January 9th elections. Hamas is running the local polls, so much will be made of their showing against Fateh.

Blair came and went yesterday in a world wind visit to both Jerusalem and Ramallah, and did get what he wanted -- Israeli and Palestinian leaders both said publicly that his plan for a conference is important, but with not very much enthusiasm in either Jerusalem or Ramallah for the plan. Israel has never been enthusiastic about international conferences and the Palestinians, while certainly eager for financial aid, are not enthusiastic about international pressure on them without any on Israel.

Judging from the uproar of the new government coming into being -- the Labor Party was holding elections today in its central committee, to pick the seven lucky politicians who will get to sit around the government table in the new coalition -- the establishment Right is being cornered into promising 'no refusal to obey army orders, no violence, and no orange stars, but in the weirder communities in the hills tghere are hundreds, perhaos thousands of radicals for whom the Yesha Council is no less the establishment than the government. But the evacuation is still six months away. Meawnhile, optimistic expectations in the Prime Minster’s Office about having a new coalition a few days after the Likud voted to allow him to bring Labor in, have now turned into more sober predictions of a new government by mid-January. We'll see.

Meanwhkle, Peace Now's not taking any chances. It launched a campaign to find volunteers who would step in to replace any soldiers who refuse to obey orders to evacuate a settlement. A dozen MKs have promised they will be among those sitting in, refusing to leave the settlements of Gaza and the northern West Bank. The yes to Geneva advertising campaign is running on Palestinin TV and radio, but has not appeared in the mass market in Israel, so far only being shown in movie theaters.

Thus, on the verge of 2005, it looks like it will be a year of domestic political turmoil in Israel, while the Palestinians have to finally get down to doing some serious state-building. On both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the leaderships will be charged with rupturing national unity, a prized value for both societies.

But the polls agree: more than anything, Israelis and Palestinians want a chance for a normal life, without suicide bombers and tanks, vengeance and retritbution. To achieve that, each side will have to confront its extremists if they refuse to be brought into the fold of the majority aspirations for an end to the bloodshed. But meanwhile, regrettably, on Christmas Eve, 2004, the extremists in the Holy Land are still trying to pull the strings for God.

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